Hoofs Reflection
by Wakadooia
Summary: Part 4 of Space Vagabonds. Cyclonus wants a word with Swindle, unfortuneately he's already in a bit of trouble with Thunderhoof. (EDIT 19/01/2017: rewrote/updated all current chapters (7 at this time), all future chapters will be in this style.)
1. Chapter 1

Despite the intense annoyance radiating off the big guy, Cyclonus had left the control room a mere few minutes after he had finished talking.

His undamaged arm easily pushed Gavin from the room and before he knew it he was back in his own 'room'.

One of the crates of Oranges had already been placed in the corner of the room.

The pile of blankets he had slept in was still bundled up in it's messy 'nest' formation in the middle of the floor but the bag with the alien food in had been pushed into the corner.

At the very least he had something safe to eat now.

Poking at the blanket pile with his foot he glanced up to the stone-like structure that made a bed for this species, the box-step rose him up enough to look the whole thing over.

It didn't look too comfortable then again Gavin had spent more than enough nights sleeping on the floor in various places to truthfully be put off by such a notion.

Pressing down on it the bed felt warm and tough, choosing to hit it now Gavin gave it a few cautionary smacks to see if it did anything, which it did actually.

A lid slid away from under his hand revealing something far more bed-like beneath.

It dipped down a little like a coffin inside and was covered in a pale green jelly-like substance with a thin layer of fluid resting in it.

Certainly better looking than a rock to sleep on.

Dipping his hand in, the jelly-like base was not as soft or malleable as actual jelly but somewhat close.

The fluid was barely an inch deep, it was cold, felt like water and gave the freakish sensation of actually hugging onto Gavin's hand.

Gavin snapped his hand back out, not quite enjoying that sensation, to find that none of the fluid was still on his hand.

Still not trusting it Gavin began peeling off his clothes, the trousers in particular still had sand coating the edges. Dropping them to the side Gavin looked rather lame as he slouched in his boxers, taking a trip to the bathroom before bed.

The mirror told him that he did indeed still have some blue around his face but it was significantly paler now. It also showed him that all of his make up had washed away.

He had to look at it now, that part of him going from one side of his face to the other.

Gavin snapped his head down quick and looked for anything remotely like a toothbrush instead.

Nothing on or around the sink. He figured it may have to be something to ask about in the morning, his teeth could go another night without brushing he supposed.

A hairbrush would also be something he should look for, running his fingers through his dyed mop he didn't encounter a lot of tangles so he guessed that was okay for now too.

Returning to the main room Gavin brought one of the blankets up to the box-step with him. It would have to serve as a pillow, it would be enough to make sure he didn't sink below the fluid in his sleep, he folded it up into an adequate pillow-substitute and placed it at one end.

Gavin awkwardly sidled over the edge of this bed and slowly began placing his feet into it.

Just like before it was damn cold and hugged his body.

The mere sensation alone made him shiver intensely.

The gel cushioned him nicely however and if he kicked out in his sleep the padding on the sides wouldn't hurt too bad, probably not the worst sleeping arrangements he could have ended up with.

Despite the relative comfort of the bed gave him that 'night' it did not give him the best of sleep.

Too 'huggy', felt like hands everywhere it was strange, felt strange, made a few old memories poke around at the surface again. Like memories of large hands holding him still while pretending to be nice.

Getting out of it was the hard part, the room felt intensely hot now he was not in the cool fluid, and after sleeping in it Gavin's body may as well have been made of stone with wooden hinges for joints. He felt as if he could feel his own bones moving against each other.

Never again. Not that bed.

With the kind of awkward gait one would usually attain if they had had a giant boar sat on their pelvis for an entire day Gavin stumbled about the room in circles trying to get a sense of normality in his body, by the time his legs started feeling like legs again whatever fluid that was left on his boxers had dried to a thin flaky cover and brushed off easily. Even then Gavin kept wandering around in circles rolling his arms and shoulders around. The morning lag was gripping him tightly, refusing to let go.

By the time he had replaced his clothes this time with the addition of his jumper, it must have been about midday.

Well if this ship ran by Earth time, which it probably didn't, and if Gavin was even able to accurately guess how much time had passed on Earth. Which he probably hadn't.

The purple jumper was comfy and something Gavin doubted he'd ever let go of. Wearing it relaxed him from the oddity of the morning, he walked to the control room to see if they were any closer to this 'mystery sleazebag' Cyclonus believes to know about the orange seller.

Each day he seemed to notice something new about this ship.

Above most of the doors, there was a triangular symbol embossed into the frame, it was a different shade of purple than the rest of the place and looked a little like a face.

Cyclonus was already awake and sat back in the pilot's chair lounging in what seemed like an uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.

In front of him, a wide panel emerged from the control sector it had a different symbol that also looked like a funny triangle but with spikes and a circle.

The symbol flashed repeatedly before the screen cut to black. Cyclonus made a groaning noise with an underlying whirring sound before he tapped at the screen again making several chunks of what Gavin assumed to be his native writing flash up. He recognised the triangular symbol as Cyclonus pressed it again making it take up the entire screen once more.

Cyclonus reasserted himself in the chair sitting upright again as Gavin climbed back onto the second seat, Cyclonus didn't take his eyes off the screen.

In the arm that had been broken, but now looked significantly better, Cyclonus twiddled an actual broken bone in the previously damaged arms hand, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger he paused only to look at the broken end of the hollow bone before slipping it into a pocket on his chair's side.

Broken bones weren't quite what Gavin had thought would be on this guys menu.

The flashing symbol cut to black again and Cyclonus made a jittering hiss before cutting back into something Gavin could understand.

"Stupid, stupid..." he uttered "Never picks up"

"Well, I guess if you call him 'slimy' a lot he probably doesn't want to talk to you" Gavin made himself known.

Cyclonus huffed.

"Everyone calls that sleaze 'slimy' usually to his face, he doesn't care he'll still sell to them, he knows he's a dirty underhanded crook"

"Oh alright then, at least he's honest with that then" Gavin smirked.

"There is nothing that honest about Swindle" Cyclonus sneered, his lip curling with disgust.

"Swindle!? You're going to someone named Swindle who's a 'dirty underhanded con'? Geez with that name and attitude he sounds like he crawled out of an 80's cartoon show! Fuckin' Swindle..."

"It is a rather fitting name" Cyclonus breathed out before tapping at the same 'call' symbol on his screen again. It was of no surprise there was no answer.

"If this guy is not answering the phone, why not go where you last met him?" Gavin suggested.

"No" Cyclonus made a half-sigh, half-huff "He moves about"

"Must have to if he 'swindles' people out of their cash" Gavin bit his lip and pulled a stupid grin entirely too pleased with himself.

"Yes, he tries to live up to his name it seems." any humour made an audible 'wooshing' noise as it sailed over Cyclonus's head.

"Great" Gavin's disappointment was obvious "Why not just pretend you want to buy something off him then genius? I'm sure waving some space-cash at him would do it."

"But I am not buying anything" Cyclonus said in a rather genuinely innocent manner.

"Oh my god, of course, you're not buying anything shit-stick! It's a lie!" Some of Gavin's sentence was drowned out with a deep warning-growl and flash of arching quills as Cyclonus cast him an angry glance.

"He won't fall for that. If he's not answering a call he must be lying low, he can't be that stupid that he'd break silence just for some 'cash'" Cyclonus leant back in his chair his arms crossed angrily as he returned to staring at the blank screen.

They let a few moments silence pass before Cyclonus rubbed his eyes and sighed

"He is that stupid"

With a resigned slump in his shoulders, Cyclonus leant forwards as if he was twice as heavy.

With a set of disgruntled clicking sounds, he tapped away at the screen with his claws, this time bringing up an empty screen with a series of on-screen buttons beneath it.

Instead of trying to call Cyclonus proceeded to send something Gavin would call an 'e-mail' but a little different.

Once the text box vanished from the screen Cyclonus leant back in his chair with a thoroughly displeased look making something close to a hiss ending in a click.

"Will he get that soon?" Gavin asked, pondering if space e-mails were faster than Earthly ones.

"Yes, it's his private line" Cyclonus mumbled more into the finger he had near his face than to Gavin.

Gavin tuned to watch the screen like Cyclonus was.

"Wait if you have his private line... That means you buy off this sleazebag!" Gavin's mind made the eventual realisation, Cyclonus didn't answer but quickly turned to look at the floor "Oh my god" Gavin laughed.

Their attentions were returned to the screen when it began strangling an eagle.

Or at least making that kind of noise, as a message written in the same language as everything else on the ship popped up, it was also signed with the same purple triangular symbol he had seen above the ships doors earlier.

Swindle was probably the same species as Cyclonus.

"Uuuuuuuuugh damn it Swindle" Cyclonus groaned and slumped down in his seat.

"He fell for it didn't he?" Gavin arched an eyebrow as Cyclonus cast a glare at him but not at him in particular more a glare that probably won't leave his face until he slaps Swindle.

"He's stationed himself on a planetoid nearby a Space Bridge, a typical place for him to... 'set up shop' I think?" Cyclonus tapped his chin a little as he thought over the last line, trying to assure himself he used the phrase in the right context.

Gavin didn't correct him so he stopped thinking about it and removed the communications panel in order to grasp the flight controls and push the ship onwards.

Gavin shuffled about in his chair, a little excited, another crab-guy like Cyclonus! He wondered if Swindle would have the mini-arms too or a tail!

"What amount of... Gee... force can your species survive without protection?" Cyclonus leant over to be looking Gavin in the eyes. The sharp glare stopped Gavin's somewhat excited shuffling and replaced it with nervous stillness.

"Uuuh" He gaped "I... I don't know?" He shrugged, fiddling with his sleeves.

"That is not a suitable answer"

"Well, shit man I don't know! I have no idea how much we can handle even with protection!"

Cyclonus made a tsk-ing chirp before tightening his grip on the piloting controls and jarring the steering device forwards sharply.

The entire ship lurched painfully before humming more intensely at a higher pitch. Stars outside began blurring as Gavin was squished into the back of the chair, his whole body under pressure, his eyes streaming as it became tougher to breathe.

Cyclonus turned a dial and Gavin slumped forwards as most of the pressure lifted within the ship. It still kept Gavin firmly in place, but more comfortably so while maintaining its prior speed.

It was hard but Gavin turned to Cyclonus for an answer, he rolled his eyes at the human

"Gravity stabilisers, You hardly managed to stay breathing under pressure"

"Yeah well I don't have a shell like you" Gavin protested

"A disadvantage it seems" Gavin was sure a small smirk emanated from Cyclonus

"Wow" he huffed in turn.

"Keep your mood to yourself, we're here" Cyclonus silenced any further conversation.

Gavin looked up out the viewing ports, to more space.

"There isn't anything" He gestured to the space visible before them.

"Look to the sides" Cyclonus let out a heavy sigh.

On either side of the ship, he could see two strips of pale green. The size was clearly immense for Gavin to only he able to see a strip of colour on either side of the ship with little detail on either part.

"So this space bridge thing is big then?" Was all he came out with.

"Immense" Cyclonus breathed, looking at the visible parts of the space bridge with a glimmer of happiness visible on his face "Scientists from my world helped build these" his quills twitched upright will a small bolt of pride.

Gavin was debating on saying something when he noticed the room had gone a blue-ish green.

He spun around in time to witness something rush towards the ship and for him to let out a shriek.


	2. Chapter 2

Cyclonus looked awfully confused.

Gavin looked awfully angry.

There was a silent mutual agreement that the noise, that apparently was meant to be a small shriek but didn't quite make it, would not be mentioned again.

Even so, a different set of stars confronted them now. A misty blue galaxy was even visible in the distance now

"Right. Planetoid. Below the bridge." Cyclonus made a series of small statements to himself as the now much slower ship cruised down towards the bottom of the ring.

The angling of the ship had shown the still a little startled Gavin that the Space bridge they had just passed through was a giant ring suspended in space with colour on the inner side, the rest was a pale stone-y grey.

Despite the massive ring and Gavin's leaning in an attempt to see more of it, the space ship sailed right past the lower portion before speeding up again towards a belt of rocks.

The particular belt the ship headed to grew exponentially in size as the ship closed in, about three of the shapes, in particular, seemed more spherical than the rest, one even having different colours across its surface other than rock-colour.

"Sphere ones are the- ?" Gavin tried redeeming himself a little from his earlier shriek.

"Yes" Cyclonus was able to cut him off before the question finished.

The ship plunged back into its inevitable pit of silence as it cruised at a faster-than-normal pace towards the central planetoid, presumably the one where Swindle's signal came from.

"There's another ship here..." Cyclonus murmured

"Yeah, isn't that how Swindle got here too?"

"Not his ship!" Cyclonus sharply spat in annoyance.

"Alright alright, man! All you had to do was say so!" Gavin added a 'damn' under his breath at the end of that but Cyclonus didn't hear.

Cyclonus was leaning forwards, quills upright and twitching, as if on alert, while he read the readings the controls before him gave out in alien code.

The ships lighting dimmed as it reached the surface gently and silently. As soon as it landed doors leading to the outside opened automatically.

"Wait if I'm coming with you, is the air safe out there?" Gavin paused half-way through getting off his chair.

"That didn't bother you before when you followed me" Cyclonus pointed out.

"Oh aye, fair point" Gavin shrugged, couldn't quite argue with that.

Gavin let Cyclonus lead the way, even if the route to the door was not hard to follow.

The planetoid was dusty and meek, utterly plain and unnoticeable.

If you were going to be a bit of a crooked businessman this would be a good spot to hide at Gavin supposed.

Looking at the deserted surface, his distraction led to him stumbling over a few rocks and earning several agitated hisses from Cyclonus, he wanted to argue his case but Cyclonus suddenly knelt down and hopped forwards before disappearing downwards.

The pose looked horrifically awkward on someone of his stature but looking at the sloped ledge he was now sliding down it seemed the best posture.

Taking up a similar crouched pose Gavin shuffled forwards, the dirt on the slope was fine and loose and the pull of gravity started sliding him down towards where Cyclonus was stood near the bottom.

The dirt was far too loose and Gavin stood up as he slid trying to get a better position, legs spreading out he instantly regretted that as each foot decided it wanted to go a different direction than the other.

Gavin's arms flailed as he panicked

"EH! EEHP!" Came out in short yelps instead of anything constructive as he tried breaking out into a run to gain some control.

That didn't work and the bottom of the slope came ever closer "AH! HEY HEY! CATCH ME! SOMETHING!" Gavin called out automatically as he saw Cyclonus cast a lazy glance at the flailing human, trying to call for some form of assistance.

Nothing happened as Gavin went face-first into the ground spewing up a cloud of dust.

Gavin resigned to lie there for a few seconds not doing a thing before the dust that had inevitably entered his mouth became too much and he started coughing.

Sore all down his front and shaking with coughing fits, he turned a not-so-lazy glance to Cyclonus.

Cyclonus proceeded to put his hand out right above where Gavin fell.

"A bit late for that now ass" Gavin hissed and Cyclonus wordlessly turned away and headed down the gulley seemingly happy with his display of indifference.

At the end of the gulley sat two spacecraft, one a dull blue the other a kind of muddy green-ish brown, possibly a muddy yellow? Gavin squinted at it, trying to figure out that colour but he recognised the other parts of the ship to be decorated purple.

"That's his ship" Cyclonus said as if aware of which ship Gavin was staring at.

"Oh aye, okay... So it's a go in and punch him for selling bad shit?"

"Then it'd be no different from eighty percent of his other customers..."

"HAH!"

"... No, I will demand to know if he knowingly sold those O-raynge-es to those thugs or if he knows who did sell them" And that was the entire conversation they held before Cyclonus strode on a good few steps ahead, taking three long steps to get up the ramp and into the ship.

It took Gavin a fair few more steps to get there.

The inside of the ship was a pale grey, nothing too fancy. Or at least the halls they were walking down weren't.

On either side of the walkway there were rooms filled with various items, but predominantly packing crates, each room was sealed off by a translucent blue barrier.

Gavin noticed that on various surfaces there was a purple triangle symbol. It was the same one on the doors in Cyclonus's ship.

They were definitely of the same species.

But that didn't answer just what that triangular face-like symbol actually meant.

Some angry voices caught their attention.

"Ah, he was hiding from someone" Cyclonus remarked as if backing himself up.

Cautiously they approached the door, Gavin went to go knock on it as hard as he could to get the attention of whoever was yelling inside but Cyclonus pressed a panel and opened it before he had the chance.

The room was filled with tall pale green armadillo-type people, all wearing a collar in a similar shade of blue to the other ship and were a good head shorter than Cyclonus. They were angrily yelling at someone at the other end of the room, said someone was making panicked trash-can noises before a sudden squawk took over and all of the armadillo's turned to look at Gavin and Cyclonus.

"Oh that fuck motherer" Cyclonus swore in a disjointed manner, the armadillo's hissed.

Gavin was ready to put his fists to an armadillo's face if he had to when he felt Cyclonus's large hand wrap around his shoulder a thumb underneath his arm and then an awkward weightless feeling as he was yanked into the air as Cyclonus turned and ran out the ship.

Gavin squawked and wailed as he desperately tried to grasp onto the hand around his shoulder while getting a great view of a small group of angry armadillo-men running after them.

Just above their heads, he saw a figure, a similar greenish-yellow to the ship, duck down and disappear behind a panel in the wall.

"Ey I think we're being used as a distraction while he escapes!" Gavin gasped realising the situation while managing to grasp onto one of Cyclonus's large claws with one hand and getting the other around his spiked forearm.

The motion thankfully turned him away from the angry stubby-faced armadilloes.

"Not a very good one, they have people in his flight deck preventing him from escaping" Cyclonus seemed barely phased and also apparently had understood some of the prior angry yellings.

When they came up to the door Cyclonus pounded the panel before literally going flying with a massive bound out the ship's door, which started folding back and closed down on their pursuers who slid to a halt, not wanting to risk running into the closing door.

They now had a temporary respite while the followers proceeded to try and figure out the doors release code, which anyone not of Swindle and Cyclonus's species needed to use.

Gavin was dropped unceremoniously back to the dirt, face first again.

His spluttering dirt-stained profanities went unheard as Cyclonus had already taken off in large bounding leaps, he made a shrieking noise that sounded awfully like a blender with a rodent inside as he seemed to home in on something.

Gavin was wobbly but hastily did his best to catch up.

Someone squealed like a trapped pig as a knee was pressed into the base of their neck making them gag loudly.

Cyclonus had pinned down Swindle who squirmed beneath him making panicked chirping noises while a wobbly smiled struggled to stay visible on his face.

The two seemed to be squawking at each other in what must've been their native language, with no idea what they were saying Gavin decided to look over this Swindle guy.

His face was a dark grey which contrasted with his large purple eyes, his body was predominantly a similar yellow-ish brown type colour like his ship, complete with purple patches on him.

Was it a theme on their planet to have vehicles in the same colours as themselves?

The armadillo's cut their angry conversation off as they opened Swindle's door, pointed and yelled.

Cyclonus had his hand wrapped around Swindle's throat and hoisted the smaller guy up with him, looked like Swindle was coming too.

Cyclonus refused to let go of the squirming crab-person as he ran on ahead, long legs easily outrunning Gavin's short ones despite the latter's attempts to keep close.

It was only thanks to Swindle's squirming slowing him down that Gavin was able to keep relatively close-by.

The trio hurried down the gully until Cyclonus spotted a part of it that felt adequate to him and he charged up it.

Gavin felt several curses and irritable responses to the climbing situation arise but by now was too out of breath to use them and merely scrambled up the slope after them.

Now they were up top, much to Gavin's 'enjoyment' it was another run back the way they came to return to Cyclonus's ship. This time Gavin did manage something akin to a swear and hobbled after them, legs burning.

Below a few of the armadillo's tried climbing up the sides of the gully, a good handful of them found the loose dirt to be too awkward for them to handle, while a good portion managed a slow ascent up the sides.

Gavin cursed the many nights of inactivity before this.

Cyclonus's ship was a welcome sight as the three advanced upon it.

Cyclonus threw Swindle on first, managing to toss the shorter fellow onto the ramp with enough force he rolled forwards to the top of it.

Cyclonus jumped on after him and Gavin barely managed to cling to the edge of the ramp before Cyclonus started withdrawing it, disregarding the human tumbling in with it.

Gavin hadn't even stood up and both aliens had already sped off to the control room and started the ships take-off procedures. Gavin wheezed a 'fuck it' and inched closer to the wall and sat down to catch his breath only going to move when the craft had actually taken off.

The ship eventually stopped shuddering as it entered a smoother more stable flight, the pitch of the engines whirred a little higher than usual as the ship kept to a high speed and Gavin wobbled to his feet before staggering down to the control room.

He could see Cyclonus in the pilot's chair, one clawed hand kept snapping out as he gestured angrily along with even angrier speech. Swindle moved a lot less but still argued back sat in the second chair.

The argument was strange to listen to.

It was like listening to a seal in a trashcan being thrown down a flight of stairs combined with whirs, clicks and hissing. It slowed down to a stop and Gavin stood between them.

He glared at Swindle

"Hey!" He snapped at the alien. Both Swindle and Cyclonus shot him a glare and the silence happened again, although every few moments a click or a hiss came from either one of them.

"Don't glare at me I want a word with you!" Gavin snapped again pointing at Swindle who looked back down at him a little offended.

"Don't interrupt us!" Cyclonus switched back to something he could understand "We're still talking you just can't hear" He explained the patches of silence.

Gavin turned to huff at Cyclonus

"He's in my spot"

"That is no one's spot" Cyclonus pointed out, but Gavin didn't listen and tugged Swindle's leg.

"Oi, get out! I've been here a few days longer than you, I sit there!" Gavin grunted at Swindle, trying to assert some kind of dominance over the situation, or at the very least not get completely pushed out.

Swindle, however, stared at him with large confused eyes before pointing at him and turning to Cyclonus.

Walrus noises came from him and Cyclonus shuddered with a little laugh.

"He called me a 'pet' didn't he?" Gavin hissed. Cyclonus didn't answer but chuckled quietly again "He did didn't he!?"

"An untrained one" Cyclonus cast him an amused glance.

"THIS MOTHERFUCKER!" Gavin snapped loudly "I'LL SHOW HIM UNTRAINED"

And Gavin did.


	3. Chapter 3

Cyclonus didn't visibly seem to be enjoying what was happening before him, but he wasn't exactly rushing to stop it.

Gavin had vaulted up onto the chair yelling several profanities most of them revolving around not being 'no animal' or 'pet' and that he'll give Swindle 'untrained'.

Swindle clearly hadn't expected the human to put on such a burst of energy and when Gavin yanked on the plating around the base of his neck Swindle had lurched forwards to the movement and tumbled to the floor.

The human's relatively soft fists only did real damage when hitting into the softer plates of the face, Swindle's only saving grace was managing to curl up and get a hand in front of his face steadily deflecting any further attacks but he still squawked miserably, ultimately not too affected by the assault.

Cyclonus eventually pulled Gavin out of his mini-rage by picking him up via his jumper and dropping him onto the now empty chair.

Swindle shuffled into a seated position on the floor burbling cautiously and rubbing at his sore face.

Gavin crossed his arms and glared at him.

Cyclonus made a few clicks and Swindle gladly rushed over to where he was rather than remain in front of Gavin.

Looking over the back of the chair Gavin watched as Cyclonus handed Swindle the disk-with-a-handle only this time it had a different card in the handle, Gavin managed to catch Cyclonus tucking away his mini-arms again as Swindle held the device to his throat and activated it while Gavin looked at two parts of him in particular.

Swindle indeed had a tail and two small arms as well. His tail seemed to be held in a slightly more pert and upright position than Cyclonus's and he did not curl his small arms against himself merely had them hang at his sides like normal arms would.

Swindle also lacked horns and quills.

"Ugh... Ack" Swindle started coughing a little, his mouth flapping open and closed "You've, ugh, been speaking, ach, this primitive language?"

"Oi mate, still here" Gavin looked over the tip of the chair

"Yes I have, It's fine, though, it does not require much effort, it doesn't reach the same amount of vocal pitches as were used to" Cyclonus responded.

"And you're the 'not pet' then? What are you doing here? Earth isn't a space-travelling planet? Besides what Earthly item did you think I had for you to buy?" Swindle walked back to the chair purposely as if he wasn't whimpering on the floor not too long ago.

"He's a stowaway. And that was an excuse to grab your attention." Cyclonus cast the duo a glare before Gavin could answer.

"Oh, so you don't want it? I could take it off your hands, though it keeps hiding its face in its clothing, is there a defect" Swindle suddenly grinned and Gavin turned away quickly. He hadn't realised he had been hiding his face.

"I won't sell him to you Swindle" Cyclonus ignored the following 'Hey!' from Gavin "You forget I actually know you"

"But you buy from me!" Swindle protested

"Hah! Knew it!" Gavin laughed, Cyclonus tsk'd and turned back to his chair.

"I don't care, what the hell were you doing with some of Thunderhoof's lot Swindle? I like pretending the people I know at least have some scrap of intelligence yet here you are getting in trouble with the likes of him!"

"Oh my god, Thunderhoof? That's an actual name?" Gavin interjected

"It's not like I sold him anything bad" Swindle shrugged trying to look innocent

"They're following us!" Cyclonus wasn't buying it.

"OH BY THE PITS!" Swindle panicked "I didn't do anything this time! Honest!" He went into a whine "They just won't believe me!"

"What's going on Swindle!?" Cyclonus grabbed him by the shoulder with one hand while keeping the other on the steering. Gavin looked out the windows as if expecting to see the ship he saw on the planetoid next to them.

It must've taken them a little while to all clamber back onto their craft.

"None of my business, I had nothing to do with it this time! Honest, I'm being honest!" Swindle protested "Take me back to my craft, I refuse to be too far away from my wares!"

"Then what DO you know?!" Cyclonus pushed him roughly to the floor snarling, Gavin wondered if they were going to fight again, not that that went well for Swindle.

"I did sell ol' hoofy a quality item quite recently, absolutely premium it was! Now he's gone and vanished and they think I did it! Me!? As if I'd get rid of a paying customer without any valid reason!"

"That's the most sense you've made since we met today" Cyclonus sighed his whole body drooping in the chair "Now you've got us into this!" He returned to being snappy.

"Wait, us? So you include me when you feel like it?" Gavin put in between the aliens back-and-forth snapping and was ignored.

"Well you're such a good customer" Swindle purred "And you do know how to handle yourself"

Cyclonus hissed.

"I thought you'd be able to handle a bunch of short mammals! Though you seem to be having trouble with just the one right now"

Gavin gave him the finger.

"Look look look! I just thought you wouldn't mind helping a pal out a bit" Swindle ignored him.

"Since when were we ever 'pals'?" Cyclonus snorted, also ignoring Gavin.

"Okay, 'associate' then" Swindle rolled his eyes to such a degree Gavin thought he heard a small wet noise accompany them.

"Tell me how to get rid of them, I don't want to be involved in this right now!" Cyclonus groaned, trying to get away from Swindle's pointless chit-chat.

"Steeljaw"

"Oh my god Steeljaw? Really? Who names you guys?" Gavin tried to cut in

"What's Steeljaw got to do with this?" Cyclonus's voice took on another level of irritation.

"Did you two really fall out that bad or did you just get fed up of each other? You used to be friends if I recall..."

"Shut up Swindle and answer me"

Gavin was being left on the sidelines about this but it seemed as if Swindle knew a fair bit about Cyclonus and bit by bit he was finding out some things now.

"Didn't you hear? Steeljaw and Thunderhoof have been a bit 'buddy-buddy' lately If anyone could convince Thunderhoofs mob I'm innocent! Or at least call them off, It's him!"

"Agh! Fine! Where is he now?"

"Ugh, Morgar V if I remember rightly, you might want to double back to that space bridge if I were you"

"I hate you Swindle"

"I know"

The ship spun around and sunk in a tight dipping U-turn, dipping below the following 'mob' which were indeed behind them just as Cyclonus told.

Their ships bulkier build wasn't able to swerve fast enough to follow Cyclonus's through the Space bridge and this time Gavin did not accompany it with a squeal.

Later he would have to ask how the bridge knew where to spit people out.

This Morgar V place was a grubby little planet. Half of it was missing and the rest was covered in metal shacks all built on top of each other and loads of power lines webbed through the skies.

A ship like their pursuers would have to land on the outskirts of town not to be caught up in the massive electrified webbing. This ship, however, could, with some smartly done twists, slide under the wires and cruise down towards a wide open area also inhabited by some small crafts.

Once the three stepped out Cyclonus shoved Swindle on the shoulder.

"Move, now" He ordered and Swindle muttered angrily rolling his shoulder but didn't argue back and started off towards the thick city.

The air matched the thickness of the city and it stank of burnt out lights.

At least now the two were walking at a slow enough pace that Gavin could stay by their sides.

The journey was made even slower by Swindle who kept getting side tracked by various items being bought and sold between different entities they passed.

None of which looked very shop-like, they even had to stop for a while when he attempted to try and sell something called an 'Inverse catapulmp' to someone they passed for no real reason other than 'he wanted to'.

He didn't get far into his 'sale' before Cyclonus pried him away.

Before long Swindle led them to a building that was 'thoroughly inconspicuous'.

Mainly because the hooded guy sat out front, who was clearly meant to be a 'homeless' person of sorts but had a gun under his rags and was wearing a collar similar to the ones the armadillo's had on.

Thoroughly unstealthy.

He eyed everyone nearing the door suspiciously clutching his weapon, noticing this Cyclonus grabbed hold of Swindle's shoulder despite his protests and announced something in a loud shrill chirp that seemed to satisfy the 'innocent homeless person' into letting them pass.

"What'dya say?" Gavin poked the back of his leg and Cyclonus took a half step away from him.

"I claimed him as my prisoner and I was bringing him in for Steeljaw to interrogate"

"Didn't have to grip me so hard though you bumbling Rustbug!" Swindle hissed and Gavin snorted

"Hehe, Rustbug…"

"Sshh, Steeljaw can probably hear you laughing away like that!" Swindle silenced Gavin with a hand that Gavin angrily slapped at "The guy's got hearing like a turbo fox!"

"Oh my god, please direct me to whoever named you guys and your animals, I can't decide whether I want to high five them or punch them in the face"

"Huh, you seemed to have picked up a mammal a bit like yourself huh Cyclonus? Likes the violent options" Swindle chimed in his smarmy manner.

"Well, I'm thinking the same about you right now, only there's no high five option" Gavin said in a correcting manner.

Cyclonus huffed at the two of them making a sharp noise as if trying to silence them.

"Well I always encounter you in such odd corners of space, you seem a bit tentative about going into homeland territory. I don't exactly think Megatron's that mad at you, I mean he puts up with Starscream, so I doubt you're a bother" Swindle continued Regardless

"What's a Megatron when it's at home then?" Gavin asked. The expression made the aliens give him an odd glance.

"Who he is, is of no importance to you, we're here" Cyclonus prevented any answer.

The entrance to the office was large and very wide needing two doors to cover it.

Swindle rapped the door happily as if he were heading in to make a sale.

Cyclonus grabbed the shoulder he had previously gripped, stopping Swindle dead, he proceeded to push past Swindle and go through the doors pulling him along without an introductory knocking, letting Gavin trail behind.

The room was wide, very wide. Clearly, it was rather new or at least being refurbished as there were a fair few boxes lying around and scattered papers. Just as Swindle said earlier one side of the room had a massive mirror hung up, it's metal frame decorated with several dancing animals at the top and paw-like feet at the bottom standing it up.

It was not the most noticeable thing in the room however as the toppled desk and battered chair framed a limp figure.

Bigger than Swindle, smaller than Cyclonus but a little wider. A steel-blue creature lay panting, it's chest swelling with each deep laborious breath as a grey-blue liquid streamed out from several lacerations across its body.

"Steeljaw!" Cyclonus identified the crumpled mass as he jumped over to him and put his hands to the barely conscious being "He's alive, the bleeding might be slowing down but the cuts are deep"

"What did this to him?" Swindle glanced around nervously.

Something thudded outside and an angry voice barked something before being joined by several other angry voices, getting louder as they neared the office.

"Not our main concern right now" Cyclonus grimly cast a glance to Steeljaw.


	4. Chapter 4

Angry babbling grew ever louder only to be interrupted by a squeak, Cyclonus had opened the window, behind where the desk was most likely placed and looked out at the alley.

He barely had the chance to say it was clear before Swindle barrelled out of the opening and turned tail down the alley.

With a snarling hiss, Cyclonus bolted after him leaving Gavin to catch the window before it shut on him, and prevented him from escaping with them.

Moaning, Gavin wished he didn't have to go through another chase again but ran down in the direction the two went nonetheless. He didn't have a difficult time spotting where they went, Cyclonus was a good deal taller than everyone else and his horns only helped.

Just follow the bobbing horns.

It didn't take long for Cyclonus to have caught up to the smaller Swindle.

He had body-slammed the latter into another alley and had a knee in his back by the time Gavin arrived.

"Were you followed?" Cyclonus didn't even look up from Swindle to visually acknowledge him.

"I 'unno f-following you guys weren't I?" Gavin gave a sarcastic pant "Don't think so"

"Where do you think you were off to?" Cyclonus had already lost interest before Gavin had finished and was leaning in on Swindle who laughed nervously.

"Wee-he-helll I thought it would be better if I got as far away as possible! They are after mee" He squawked a little as Cyclonus dug his knee in.

"What happened to Steeljaw? Those wounds were still weeping!" Cyclonus barked.

"Oh!" Swindle sounded offended "I was with you the whole time! How would I know what got him!?"

"If it was fresh, why not follow the blood?"

"Yes! Yes! Listen to the Earth mammal! You used to do a lot of hunting when you were younger as I recall you saying" Swindle whined into the ground. Cyclonus eventually pulled his knee off his back and let him scramble to his feet.

"Not much point, that place will be crawling with goons now they've seen Steeljaw's been injured" He said coolly to accompany a rather cold glare he was giving the world.

"Not entirely, no Thunderhoof and now no Steeljaw, they're pretty much leaderless!" Swindle waggled a finger as if he were giving a lesson "Besides we don't have to go too close to the building, do we? Who'd stay in the same area after attacking someone like that? We know they'd leave but I think you're putting too much faith in those goons, they're loyal but lack the brains to be much use without a figurehead, so they're more interested in him"

Gavin watched both their reactions as it fell fairly silent after that. Cyclonus slowly turned to glare at Swindle, the quills at his side wavering as if they couldn't decide if they wanted to flare up or not.

He eventually conceded and backed off to stalk down the alleyway in a huff.

Swindle gave his front a light brush down and turned around, seeing Gavin at the other end of the alley and went back to where he was.

"Why not send the runt here to go look for blood spots?" He waved his hands lackadaisically.

Gavin kicked him in the ankle-area and Swindle hopped back with a small yelp.

"Call me 'runt' or 'pet' again and your head's going up someone's arse" Gavin threatened, even if he probably couldn't follow through.

"No. If anything he's more recognisable than us because he is the only human in this galaxy" Cyclonus stepped towards the two "If Swindle is anywhere near accurate, then those goons will be predominately focusing on getting Steeljaw medical attention while a group of them scouts out the attacker"

Swindle put on his good 'pout'

"If? Only if? Sounds as if you have no faith in me Cyclonus! I talk with Thunderhoof regularly, I know just how much he complains about the nature of these goons he has right now. They're dumb to the point where they'll wait for their master's word before actually doing what would be logical! Either that or they fear Thunderhoofs reaction if they do something he didn't want"

Cyclonus was already rubbing his eyes out of frustration.

"I'm in charge of the idiot parade" He muttered quietly to himself as Gavin made a remark about the goons sounding 'as useful as a condom dispenser in the Vatican', not that either he or Swindle understood.

Ignoring the duo who had started bickering Cyclonus stared at his hand. It still had some of Steeljaw's blood on it.

Swindle wasn't lying when he had told of Cyclonus hunting at a young age.

Granted he didn't start doing it entirely of his own choice but he had learnt the basics of hunting and tracking prey. Specifically, if it were bleeding.

Blood, specifically that of their own held a particular scent one he could recognise with his limited sense. It was odd and always made the direct centre of his tongue tingle, 'tasting' the air seemed to work a little better than smelling directly, he glanced around the corners of the alleyway seeing if there was any kind of trail, scent or otherwise.

"SMEG!?" The word yelled by Swindle snapped Cyclonus out of his focus "What does that even mean!?"

"It means you're a Smeghead!" Gavin chimed back.

The phrase 'idiot parade' crawled back into Cyclonus's head as he watched them.

Gavin wasn't really saying anything to Swindle but it was fun watching the alien get frustrated trying to wrap his head around whether he was being insulted or not.

Just like Cyclonus, he had only learned a somewhat basic vocabulary from the disk-with-a-handle - Something he now learned was called a 'Data Injector'.

"Ugh fuck mothering toaster strudel" He uttered at the irritable alien with a little grin.

"What? I'm pretty sure that was insulting!" Swindle snapped "What even is a toss-tehr stroo-dell? Is it something sellable?"

Credit where credit's due this guy didn't want to miss a chance at earning more money or it's equivalent.

Cyclonus came over to the two of them, he didn't say a word or make a sound. His mere presence shut the two up and made them look to him.

"Good I'm not interrupting anything, I was worried that sorting out Swindle's mess with Thunderhoof wasn't a priority"

"Misunderstanding!" Swindle hastened to 'correct' him.

"Whatever" Gavin chose to shut him up, this guy was okay at first but hanging around him for too long was beginning to feel like a chore.

"I'm following the blood trail. Right now you two can either choose to follow me or fuck off and I don't particularly care which you choose"

"Alright! A blood trail! I can punch something else in the face!" Gavin celebrated while Swindle looked increasingly worried.

"I doubt you'd be able to do anything" Cyclonus muttered.

"I got him din' I?" Gavin jutted a finger at Swindle who curled his lip in return.

Cyclonus didn't even reply he seemed to have become lost in some mental escape for a few moments.

He still didn't say anything as he marched off in the opposite direction.

Clearly, time was being wasted, and with such fresh wounds clearly their attacker wasn't far off or at least that's exactly what Gavin thought as he trotted off after Cyclonus, Swindle followed slowly as if a little wary of what they might get up to.

Without looking back Cyclonus suddenly broke out into a jogging run

"Try keeping together" he suddenly called back as if only just remembering them as large legs had easily propelled him far down the street leaving them behind.

Gavin moved over to Swindle who had watched Cyclonus bound away undoubtedly thinking of some sort of escape route, standing right next to the alien he reached out and grabbed his elbow, as tightly as he could manage, keeping his fingertips in the exposed joint.

"Ah!" He suddenly gasped before beeping irritably glaring at the hand on his arm.

"Ah, just keeping together like the big guy said, ay 'pal'? Wouldn't want to get lost now huh?" Swindle shuddered irritably and nodded.

Keeping a firm grip on Swindle Gavin set off running, this time it would be at his own pace, Swindle was awkward to drag, the two of them tried to weave through the other aliens milling around the streets only having a few collisions between them. Knocking into others seemed only to yield angry snapping thankfully and the two carried on.

"Let go!" Swindle whined

"No!" Gavin snapped

"Let go!" Swindle merely repeated himself.

"I'm not repeating myself!" Gavin gave a firm yank on Swindle's arm as they closed in on Cyclonus.

Cyclonus had started pausing every few moments to make sure he was following the right path.

The scent got weird.

He took off as Gavin and Swindle arrived making them both groan.

At least at a slow jogging pace, it wasn't too hard to keep a relatively close distance, Cyclonus seemed to be following a pattern before performing a U-turn, then another. He was going around in circles.

"My, someone's a little rusty, aren't they? What would the fami-"

"Steeljaw!?" Cyclonus cut Swindle off with a snapping yell suddenly looking to the side.

Gavin skidded to the floor as he failed to keep his balance like the others did while stopping dead in their tracks.

"Oh by the pits it IS Steeljaw!" Swindle echoed. Gavin got up to peer down the alley they had stopped near.

Down the dim patch of paving, the large steel-blue shape of Steeljaw could be made out, he was making a slow and awkward path towards a power station and paid no heed to his name being called. Cyclonus took over and grabbed Swindle's arm.

"He was barely breathing when we saw him back there" He hissed suddenly putting his face very close to Swindles.

"Wh-wha? Well, looks like he made a speedy recovery!" Swindle laughed a little.

"He couldn't be up this quickly!" Cyclonus hissed his voice going quiet in that my-calm-is-covering-a-massive-shitstorm-of-anger manner.

"You did recover from a broken arm pretty quick, and he is lumbering about slowly" Gavin decided to put in, he hadn't looked too closely at Steeljaw when they were in the room. He had just seen enough to know he was struggling to breathe "But he was having problems breathing"

"Exactly" Cyclonus shook Swindle a little and he made a panicked burble in response.

"Yeah!... Okay then" Gavin said as if he was to begin another sentence but instead, Gavin ran down the alleyway towards the power station "Steeljaw! Ey! Ey! Steely!" He yelled.

"GAVIN NO" Cyclonus bellowed after the jaunty human, Cyclonus yelling got Steeljaws attention more so than Gavin calling his actual name. Steeljaw turned his muzzled face round and saw the human advancing on him at its top speed

"Steeeeeeeljaw! Lookie here! A little alien wants to talk to your ugly mug!" Gavin hollered joyfully despite not remembering that Steeljaw probably couldn't understand him.

Steeljaw's yellow eyes grew wider in panic as Gavin approached, he began shuddering in confusion, the human was almost on him it's new words confusing and shrill.

Without a moment's notice, Steeljaw dropped to all fours, pushing outwards he headbutted Gavin in the gut sending him toppling backwards to the floor with a garbled yelp of agony.

Steeljaw roared angrily as he got back up and bared his claws as two new enemies approached him.

"Stupid fuck motherer" Cyclonus hissed to himself as the small shell-less human was sent tumbling by Steeljaw. Still pulling Swindle with him Cyclonus ran to confront Steeljaw, switching back to his mother tongue.

"What are you playing at? Look at that thing, it's harmless!" He snapped at him

Steeljaw snarled back wincing.

"Aren't you even going to see if he's still alive?" Swindle uttered from behind Cyclonus avoiding Steeljaws line of sight.

"No. Steeljaw, you don't attack things on sight, what's gotten into you?" Cyclonus went to grab Steeljaws hand but the latter stumbled backwards quickly avoiding him and giving another snarl.

"I don't think I should call you Steeljaw, you're not are you?" Cyclonus uttered

"Looks like him to me" Swindle hissed.

"No, Steeljaw's no animal and he doesn't have a scratch on him. He is not Steeljaw"


	5. Chapter 5

The not-Steeljaw roared angrily, rooted in its spot.

Here was the battlefield, the mystery-attacker is going down and it had chosen the backyard of a power plant to fight at.

Nothing around them but the plant's damaged fence and parts of unneeded machinery and pipes shoved in the corners or dumped anywhere they fitted.

"You can't even roar properly!" Cyclonus mocked his foe.

The not-Steeljaw bounded forwards with its claws glinting in the light, familiar blue blood coated them.

Swindle squeaked and bolted for the power station's fence as Steeljaw went flying into the air, Cyclonus grabbed at its chest and flipped the not-Steeljaw over his head.

Not-Steeljaw splayed out mid-air and landed on its feet with a bit of a crunch.

Facing down the imitation all of Cyclonus's quills snapped to attention, each one twitching with anticipation, the not-Steeljaw didn't move.

It started glancing around, panicked. It grabbed a rock and lobbed it at Cyclonus, the not-Steeljaw's aim wasn't amazing, as the rock went sailing over Cyclonus's head.

Cyclonus charged the not-Steeljaw, who twittered in panic as it dropped to all fours again, swerving past the charging Cyclonus. Angrily, Cyclonus tried to swing at him as he went past but to no avail.

Safely on the other side of Cyclonus, the not-Steeljaw began throwing rocks, pipes and whatever else it could grab from the dumped discarded parts.

Cyclonus hissed as he batted the makeshift ammunition away and glared at Swindle who was pressed up against the fence. Swindle immediately shook his head at Cyclonus, unwilling to have random assortments of junk tossed at him.

Cyclonus grunted as a rock hit him above the eye, he then launched himself at not-Steeljaw with an angry bellow.

"FIGHT ME YOU COWARD!" he demanded. Not-Steeljaw didn't comply as once again he bolted away from Cyclonus, essentially trading places again.

This time, Cyclonus didn't stop and used his hands to help him spin back around on not-Steeljaw and charge him once again.

Not-Steeljaw yelped in panic as it tried to scurry away again. Ready for its repeat tactic, Cyclonus watched for which side it would run to. The moment the imitation moved Cyclonus copied it.

Mid-run Cyclonus stamped down with his left foot and threw himself right at the fleeing copy.

Not ready for his change in motion, the not-Steeljaw squealed as it dropped to the floor desperate to avoid the angry blur of purple sailing towards it.

Said blur of purple was not going to let it get away this time and grasped a hold of the not-Steeljaw's shoulders, and brought it tumbling down with him.

The panicked not-Steeljaw did not stop moving and continued flailing as it hit the ground. Its joints made the most awful grinding noise as it struggled against the floor.

"Oh well, I guess it didn't need our help" Swindle was barely audible over not-Steeljaws pathetic squirming.

"YOU COLOSSAL COCKWANK!" was, however.

Gavin had recovered from whatever state he was in after being headbutted and had grabbed one of the pipes not-Steeljaw had thrown at Cyclonus.

With an angry yell, he slammed the pipe vertically into not-Steeljaw's elbow, as it laid back startled from his yelling.

Upon colliding with the joint the pipe created possibly one of the worst high pitched screeching-crash of a noise ever heard.

The joint shattered into several glittering pieces and not-Steeljaw gasped in pain.

Gavin hadn't finished yet and drew the pipe back up, this time swinging it down on not-Steeljaw's head snapping it off its phoney body and shattering the jaw. The rest of the head followed when it collided with a box, sending thousands of shining shards everywhere.

Not-Steeljaw's body froze, stiff and thoroughly dead, with three pairs of eyes watching it in bemusement.

"Glass?" Cyclonus was the first to speak.

"Well y'know, thinking about it, that'd explain why it didn't go hand-to-hand with you" Swindle chimed "And the crunching noises".

"Tosspot" Gavin swore.

The glass Steeljaws body slowly started resembling glass more and more as time passed after it's 'death' it didn't take long before it merely resembled a twisted lump of the stuff with two shattered parts.

"Shame it broke, you could've added it to your collection" Swindle smirked.

Cyclonus backhanded him and Swindle dropped with a squawk.

"What do you know about this?" Cyclonus slammed his foot onto Swindle's stomach making the smaller one heave.

"Nothing!" He shrieked with the sort of speed one only gets from learning to do such a thing reflexively so many times before "I just sold a mirror it's all I did! Damn it! Is it impossible for me to be as clueless about this as you?"

"Honest!? Can you even spell such a word!?" Cyclonus barked in his face, his quills upright and quivering.

Gavin coughed and spluttered. A big glass alien headbutting him in the gut was a 100 percent-guaranteed way to make you want to vomit while simultaneously gaining severe sympathy for crash test dummies.

"Hey... yer mate's a fake" He wheezed. Both of the angrily chirping aliens turned to look at him then remembered they had still been talking in their native tongue.

"We're going back to the office and he's going to show me exactly what that mirror does!" Cyclonus hefted Swindle off the floor.

"How do you know the mirror did it? Why are you blaming me!? I just sold it! I just sold it!" He babbled digging his heels into the ground. It wasn't very effective, as Cyclonus simply lifted him off the ground with one arm and tossed him forwards.

Swindle managed to prevent a face first landing with an awkward landing run. Grunting he righted himself and glared at Cyclonus

"Yes, Sir!" He barked back at him standing rigidly to attention in some form of mock-military display before stomping off towards the buildings leaving Cyclonus to growl at an empty space.

"You guys are fucking weird..." Gavin gasped out as he dropped the pipe he had been using as support.

"He is just a… Ay-hole?" Cyclonus huffed despite his own uncertainty at the insult.

"So am I, so are you. Now, where is the fucker going?" Gavin rubbed away at his chest.

"Report any broken bones" Cyclonus stormed off after Swindle the moment his 'order' left his mouth. Gavin sagged and hoped the other caught sight of his irritated glare, but he probably didn't.

Thunderhoof, Steeljaw and then a glass Steeljaw and Cyclonus was blaming it all on Swindle and this mirror.

Whether it was wrongly or rightly was to be discovered, Cyclonus just seemed angry at Swindle and wanted to yell. Which eventually clicked Gavin's mind back into some form of remembrance, Oranges.

Perhaps this was all residue irritation from the orange-incident.

Well, it was residual thought lingering in his head. Though by the time he had caught up with Cyclonus's slow lumbering pace the only word in his head was 'residue' and he couldn't remember what it was a residue of.

"Fuck" He uttered to himself. Cyclonus remained silent and steady in his motions, while they were following Swindle it was at a distance. Gavin noticed Cyclonus seemed to have completely zoned out, his eyes were nowhere near focused as he kept a flat, blank face on almost as if he had decided to stare into bleak void one would call life or death.

"With a face like that, you wouldn't have needed that hologram thingy you'd've fit right in in Scotland" Gavin laughed "It was a land of the moody shits! Guess we liked to match the bleak weather!" Gavin's giggles did nothing more than rouse Cyclonus from his daydream and put his focus back into reality.

Where, if he even heard, he ignored everything Gavin just said and caught up to Swindle.

Even if he couldn't crack a joke without an hour to pre-plan getting some sort of reaction from Cyclonus, happy or not, was a trial.

Swindle himself had already settled at the window to the Office where they found the real Steeljaw.

"After you" He gestured half-mockingly to the window.

Cyclonus grabbed the window, opened it and stared at Swindle until he crawled into the room. Gavin quickly scrambled through straight after the alien on the off chance Cyclonus would leave him outside.

The room had been relatively fixed up. Steeljaw had been taken away to receive medical attention while the chair and desk were rearranged into a more orderly fashion. The mirror was still innocently hung up on the wall.

"Why'd you sell the mirror to Thunderhoof? And where did that glass replica come from?" Cyclonus gripped the edge of the mirror gently examining it.

"Well, Thunderhoof's just setting himself up here, a uh new branch of his 'enterprise' so to say. A mirror would look so, uh, suave and professional?" Swindle chimed as if nothing strange had happened.

Gavin started to examine the mirror too his eyes tracing over the reflection of the room while avoiding his own.

Large, reflective. Seemed to be doing a good job of being a mirror.

"I don't give two shits what Thunderhoofs doing" Cyclonus batted the rim of the mirror and pressed it against the wall as if applying pressure would do anything. "Why did he want it and why do I think it had something to do with the false Steeljaw?" His voice rose louder the longer his question went on. Swindle squeaked

"I don't know why you think it had anything to do with the glass Steeljaw it can't do anything like that!"

Gavin found himself grinning, his breath fogging up the mirror, he watched in the reflection as Cyclonus closed the gap between himself and Swindle, towering over the salesman.

"So tell me dear Swindle. What does the mirror do?"

"It doesn't create clones!" Swindle snapped "It's not meant to do that! It's just a small miniature portal! It uses up so much energy! It has to be small! As if it could ever make a duplicate of someone!" Swindle ran to the wall and flipped a switch behind the mirror, making the surface wobble and the light flicker pitifully "See!?"

"That thing is a portal?"

"Yes! Yes! Thunderhoof wanted it so that if he had anything he needed to hide from authorities in a rush or-or-or things that, uh, were too valuable you know, he had somewhere to stash them quickly! No one would ever check inside a mirror!"

"That's smart" Gavin whispered to himself before grinning, an actual interdimensional portal.

Sweet.

In the reflection, however, he could see Cyclonus lifting the squeaking Swindle off the ground by his shoulder while looking as if he really was holding back a shitstorm of anger.

"Well, I think you just answered the DAMNED ISSUE WITH MISSING THUNDERHOOF DIDN'T YOU!" He practically screamed in Swindle's face "WHERE ELSE COULD HE HAVE VANISHED TO!? Now, how about you be useful AND FIND HIM!"

Gavin didn't have long to process the speeding mass of dirty-yellow that slammed into his back flinging him straight into, and through the mirror.

Panting roughly all of Cyclonus's quills twitched and shuddered irritably.

Stupid Swindle, getting them chased halfway across the galaxy because he sold some stupid portal to another stupid asshole.

Swindle was right about the portal using a good deal of energy as the lights failed when he sailed into it and onto the other side, taking a good while before they clunked back to life.

Though now he was alone in the office.

Cyclonus groaned loudly not caring if anyone outside heard him, although if they hadn't heard him yelling they wouldn't have heard that.

He managed to throw the human through too.

He hadn't meant to do that. He should've left it on the ship.

He scratched irritably at his own face in frustration.

He wasn't going to go into the mirror after them, someone had to stay on the outside at least, then again the human seemed to have little to no survival instincts and Swindle was Swindle.

They could surely manage themselves while he did something about the mirror he lied to himself.

One of those morons would probably die.

He sighed.

Returning to the mirror's side Cyclonus thought about its energy usage, it seemed like it would cause a blackout if too much came through at once, unless he got it a better energy source.

Morgar V was littered with power stations, all he had to do was move it to one of those and it would automatically start drawing power from there.

Well, he guessed it would do. It had no power cord, just a switch, but needed to get its power from somewhere.

Angrily he shuffled the item away from the wall, it wasn't fantastically heavy, he could carry it on his back easily.

And that was what he opted to do. He got increasingly angrier at himself for doing so, this predicament was all Swindle's fault anyway, he should just leave him to sort it out himself but no here he was lumbering out the door with a mirror on his back.

Cyclonus lost all anger in a wave of cold panic, however, when someone behind him called out.

"EEYYY YO!"


	6. Chapter 6

The room was filled with groans and gags as two shuffling people slowly got to their feet.

Swindle started swearing and grunting in his native language while Gavin peered painfully around the room. It was indeed a reflection of the room they were just in but it was rather… wobbly.

Without thinking about it Gavin whacked Swindle on the back.

"Ahhh!" He whined in mock pain "What is it with people and hitting me today!?"

"Dick" Gavin grunted

"What? I doubt that is a reason to go hitting me?" Swindle motored on only to be stopped when the room jerked to the side sending both sliding a few feet. Wavering on the spot they both looked back to the mirror through which they entered, the room was moving, or more accurately the mirror was being moved.

"That idiot! What's he doing!? Let us out!" Swindle shrieked and made a dive for the portal only to be slid backwards when Cyclonus moved the mirror again.

Gavin ignored the crustacean and headed to the rooms only doors, seeing the only other inhabitant move away Swindle seemed to lose all interest in the mirror and dived after him.

"Where are you going? Don't you want to get out you foolish human?"

"Yeah I'm really gonna jump out a moving portal, why don't you try it and see how it goes?" Gavin shrugged.

The doors to the blurry office were cold and a gentle gust of icy air could be felt coming from them "Dunno about you but I'm just gonna head out of here before this place changes, it is a mirror after all and it'll reflect whatever Cyclonus aims it at and quite frankly I don't want to be here when that happens"

Swindle murmured in agreement as they spoke the room shuddered and buzzed between blurry and normal as Cyclonus moved it around, what would happen to the only non-reflected beings in this place when it changed was something that didn't sound fun to either of them.

The two pushed at the doors and scrambled through shutting the doors behind them, leaving the room to shift on its own.

"Well, I didn't know about this…" Swindle muttered.

"You don't know an awful lot it seems" Gavin muttered under his breath.

Turning away from the doors he got to see what Swindle was referring to.

From the small cushy office, the doors lead to a wide ornate castle hallway, the pale grey stone walls were littered with paintings of aliens and large cupboards lined the pathway, the pattern only breaking when there was a door interrupting the painting-cupboard routine.

"Damn" Gavin uttered a little impressed.

"Oh yes!" Swindle grinned elated at the sight. Without a moment's notice, he'd bounded over to the first cupboard and flung its doors wide open to reveal nothing.

Swindle scowled before opening the chest next to it. Judging by his expression he found nothing in there either. He proceeded to rummage through every storage container in the hallway

"I don't believe it!" He flung his arms up "We're in a castle and none of these chests have anything of value in them! They don't have anything in them!"

Gavin proceeded to wonder why he had stood there doing nothing, watching Swindle as if he was going to do something actually productive.

Swindle carried on ranting as Gavin meandered down the hallway, it was furnished with a gold-rimmed mauve rug and the paintings depicted bald buck-toothed humanoids, with dog-like legs and three large eyes.

"So 'Big-hoof' doesn't look like this right?"

"What? No! Thunderhoof is Seibertronian like me!"

"Huh, so that's your 'name'…" Gavin watched Swindle's tail twitch like a curious bird's as he forgot about the lack of 'sellable' items and stared at the human.

Gavin instantly pulled away from his sight, hopped over to a door they did not enter through and kicked it, the heavy material made a loud thud but did not open.

"THUNDAH HOOOOOOF!" He yelled "YE GOT VISITORS!"

Swindle squawked in a panic.

"No no! Don't do that! You don't know what else is in here!" he scrambled over.

"Your missing friend? A herd of elephants? My ass? I don't know what else is in here! Ain't you meant to be the technologically advanced species?"

"Well, we are!" Swindle huffed and Gavin scowled at him.

"Whatever, help me open these doors" Gavin grasped the stubby handle and proceeded to pull on it, the door made a low grinding noise as it dragged against the floor, the heavy door opened fully when Swindle eventually helped pull on the large object.

The doors lead to an adjacent hallway, matching the one they were just in.

"Oh great, I bet all these chests are empty too" Swindle moaned.

"Oh, whatever man" Gavin slouched into the hallway "Maybe if we start smashing stuff Hoofsie will show up" He grabbed the corner of one of the paintings, shoving it to try and dislodge it from the wall.

"No no no!" Swindle pulled Gavin back by his jumper's collar "There might be other things in here!... Those paintings might actually be worth something too..."

"'Might'? You're the fucker that sold this mirror, shouldn't you know what it does and what's in it? You're kinda meant to know the shit you're selling?"

"Yes, well I was never informed of an entire castle being tucked away in here!" Swindle squawked.

"Oh for the love of- Look that door there, it's different! Let's go down there" Gavin hooked one hand under the rim of Swindle's outer plates and gestured with the other while he simultaneously dragged the Seibertronian along with him.

The door was nestled between two picture frames and perfectly rectangular. This one had a metal ring for a handle and Gavin gave it a pull. It creaked loudly and both of them winced at the noise

"AHT!" was a somewhat accurate representation of the gasping noise Gavin just made.

"What!? Whaat?" Swindle half motioned to stand behind Gavin while trying to peer into the room.

"There are things in there!" He gasped

"Wait, what? You heard me earlier, there can't be anything in here! This mirror is ancient! Is it Thunderhoof!?"

"Not unless he brought his family" Gavin let go of the door handle.

In the room it lead to several figures lay under blankets, the noise from the door had made them start shuffling about as if they were waking up from a long sleep. The more they shuffled about the more of these blanketed figures became visible, they covered every available space in the room. Slowly a couple started moving the blankets off themselves, the light barely illuminated the features of the mouth that poked out from under one

"Uhdoo kjuuva hanfo?" It mouthed and Swindle bolted.

Gavin practically slammed the door shut as he scrambled to follow after Swindle. He almost yelled out to him to stop but a potentially dangerous room full of he-didn't-know-what's shut his mouth.

Swindle half-aimed himself back towards the mirror-portal but ended up diving down a set of stairs.

A far less graceful Gavin tumbled after him giving up his run after a while.

At the top of the stairs, he heard Swindle babbling in a rushed manner, Must be more of them down there.

With a grunt Gavin grasped the lid of one of the empty chests, kicking at the join, the wood buckled and started splintering away until the lid itself came off.

A crude weapon but it was enough for Gavin.

Sighing Gavin headed below, looked as if he was gonna have to help Swindle's greasy ass.

Probably.

It sounded like he was squawking for his life.

The room below was the kitchen, but with no food, it did, however, have a variety of metal food-preparation tools and it also had Swindle being throttled against a table.

What he was being throttled by however was hilarious and Gavin laughed.

His loud guffaws brought both being's attention to him. Both of them Seibertronian only the one throttling Swindle was blue and angry, that just wasn't what Gavin was finding hilarious.

Its head was adorned with a pair of horns with many layers, the horns were wide and curled up into points along its length and it's feet well they did honestly look like hooves.

The guy looked like some kind of deer-moose-crab-person and Gavin could not stop laughing.

"Oh gooooood! You're Thunderhoof aren't you? You have to be! You have HOOVES! Ahahaha and those horns! God, they're so wide! You have to sleep on your back, don't you? No no, wait! What if you try to roll over in your sleep? Can you even do that!?" Gavin wheezed out between laughs.

Thunderhoof's hold on Swindle loosened enough for the other to roll off the table and put it between him and Thunderhoof.

The former stared at Gavin thoroughly confused at the small alien, he turned to glare at Swindle who had gained a smile on his face now that he had put something between them.

It didn't work as Thunderhoof grabbed his throat from across the table and pulled him close making a type of noise that Gavin thought would probably be the sound a Shark would make if it could.

Swindle choked trying to grasp at the hands around his throat and Gavin wondered if he should let Thunderhoof choke him a little longer, it was somewhat amusing to even watch this big-horned guy just doing things.

Eventually, Swindle produced a Data Injector and practically threw it in Thunderhoof's face.

The 'offering' seemed enough for him to be dropped unceremoniously onto the floor, Swindle coughed and choked barely pulling himself upright.

"Guess he ain't happy about the castle then?" Gavin mockingly tapped Swindle on the head with the crate lid.

Swindle scuttled backwards from him and glared "Hold on, where were you keeping that?" Gavin pointed at the Data Injector which Thunderhoof was putting to his throat.

"Aah haha! A tradesman has to keep his secrets!" He grinned, his smarmy charm sneaking its way back onto his face.

"That's Cyclonus's isn't it?" Gavin squinted as Thunderhoof started making more human-sounding 'ugh' noises, in a similar manner to how Swindle had when he put it to its throat. Swindle froze but kept staring at Gavin without answering.

"Eeyy yo!" Thunderhoof suddenly announced loudly "Yous finally show up with somes lil' fella followin' ya and ye' ain't got an answer to this!?" He advanced on the two.

"Oh my god" was all Gavin could muster upon hearing the Seibertronians thick accent.

"And yous make me take this jus' so the lil' fella can understands?" Thunderhoof didn't seem to pay him much mind.

"I ain't little on my planet! Probably!" Gavin snapped back at him

"Oh we wouldn't know" Swindle sighed as if nothing were wrong

"Ey, I'm still a 'lil fella' who put you on the ground!" Gavin growled and shuffled closer, he wasn't sure if it was the atmosphere or the feeling of having two hard-shelled aliens towering over him but Gavin's chest felt tight and each beat of his heart felt like a thump to the chest.

"Clearly it ain't 'dat hard then" Thunderhoof sniffed his body turning more against Swindle now and Gavin felt a slight tug of a grin at the corners of his mouth.

Swindle was still the one in trouble here.

"So yous think yous can take a little somethin' from me?" A thickly accented voice chimed angrily at him in Seibertronian.

Cyclonus coughed a little and gripped the mirror tighter before turning to look at the one behind him.

Thunderhoof had returned with a large group of his mob behind him, he seemed rather cool for someone who had just found a 'theif' and wore a cape over his right side.

"So yous gonna tell me jus' what makes you think yous can get away with my things?"

"Ah" Cyclonus switched back to his native tongue to talk to him "Well how about we just use the word 'borrowing' and call it a day?"

That was weak, even for him, and without waiting for a response Cyclonus turned tail and ran down the street.


	7. Chapter 7

It was stupid. He should've left it.

The mirror handled two people going into it just fine, it'd be able to handle two coming out of it fine too.

There'd just be another power surge.

That was fine, it should be fine, being anything but fine wasn't fine.

Charging down the street carrying a mirror on your back was on the 'not fine' list.

Cyclonus's ample size and manoeuvrability let him swerve between people and occasionally jump over a few, using crates and walls as leverage.

He wasn't entirely sure what made him bolt, it was something with Thunderhoof.

Cyclonus wasn't sure if he was getting a similar vibe from him as he was the 'not-Steeljaw'.

He spoke, sounded like Thunderhoof, acted like you'd expect someone to.

He was just 'lacking'.

Cyclonus cursed himself. It was very stupid, he didn't usually act so stupid, he wanted to bang his head into a wall for his stupidity.

Honestly, this was why he had a few moments to himself before any job.

Frustration brought out the worst in him and it was doing so now.

With Morgar V being littered with so many power stations it wasn't long before he came across one.

Ignoring it, he continued to one on the edge of the current cityscape, hoping it would take Thunderhoof and his goons a while to figure out which he had entered into.

This one was an awkward shade of cream on the inside, with several greasy marks along its sides and walls where it seems nobody had bothered to clean in months.

Its unkempt appearance was only furthered by the fact there was barely anyone around.

The few that were around eyed him up suspiciously but seemed not to care about his presence.

One of the workers chittered angrily as he approached the generator room, but seemed to go quiet when Cyclonus stood at his full height, removing the mirror from his back and straightening out.

Clearly arguing with a large spiked person wasn't something his paycheck adequately covered.

The main generator room was still the same bland cream colour, but the massive room was also clearly incomplete.

It had two huge silver cylinder-shaped generators hooked up to the walls and other machines through a series of thick cables, their presence caused the PA system in this room to emit a low static feedback buzz.

While these were the only two, the huge room was clearly built for at least six generators.

Carrying the mirror in front of him, Cyclonus advanced on the nearest of the two cylindrical generators.

Their gentle hum slowly increased in pitch as the mirror got closer, the automatic energy sponging system it contained draining the generator's power, making the circuitry on the back of the mirror light up, the light throbbed slightly when Cyclonus flicked the switch on the mirrors back.

Leaning the mirror against one of the cylinders, Cyclonus stepped back and inspected it.

His reflection stared back at him with the same ponderous expression.

Cyclonus gave the mirror a cautionary poke. The surface wobbled a little and the tip of his claw sunk in a bit.

"Careful there"

Cyclonus made a short, sharp gasp as he yanked his finger out.

He automatically looked at the mirror to see who was behind him.

The mirror showed no one, but the smug voice gave it away.

So did the sudden hand on his shoulder.

Cyclonus let out a pained cry as Thunderhoof's fingers dug in, pinching at the softer exposed flesh between his shoulder plates.

Thunderhoof flipped Cyclonus across the room, watching him slam with a dull thud in the middle of the room. Wheezing, Cyclonus looked up at Thunderhoof, the cape covering one side, clinging to him, showing an awkward pattern.

Thunderhoof sighed and plucked at the capes strings, dropping it off and showing off his missing arm.

"I came out on top, but y'know my other self put up quite tha' fight see?" He grinned, showing the stump of his missing arm off to Cyclonus. There was no exposed flesh, just a shiny, scratched surface.

"Where's the rest of them?" Cyclonus hissed. He didn't get up off the floor, but he splayed his hands out and straightened his feet up, just in case he needed to move fast.

"Heh, loyal lil' runts. I told them to stay outside and only come in if they heard any suspicious noises see? So I gots a surprise for 'em! Tha' best surprise in tha' universe!"

Cyclonus straightened up to a low crouch, noticing the phoney Thunderhoof had no reflection.

"If there was a fake Steeljaw, you're not the original Thunderhoof, and it's related to the mirror, why isn't there a phoney Swindle?"

"Heh, now y'see here's tha' interestin' bit. Only people who mess with this get reflected. Good Ol' 'Hoof was tha' one to test it out when that sleaze brought it to 'im, so he ain't done enough to get done. You on tha' other hand, you messed straight with tha' circuitry givin' it a good ol' poke about eh?" the Not-Thunderhoof grinned with a borderline psychotic gleam to his eyes "Le's see if he can say hello!"

Not-Thunderhoof reached into the window and grabbed Cyclonus's horns, his reflection stood up as Not-Thunderhoof yanked him from the mirror.

Cyclonus didn't have much time to react, as a full-body copy of himself fell from the mirror, pulled along by Not-Thunderhoof.

The copy dropped to the floor and instantly cracked, the new Not-Cyclonus's face drooped on one side as the spiderwebs of shattered lines split its face in two.

No words came from his duplicates mouth but a harsh cracked screech.

"Pitiful" Not-Thunderhoof raised his foot and brought it down on the Not-Cyclonus, shattering the duplicate entirely.

"Takes us a while to get less fragile" Not-Thunderhoof smirked.

There was undoubtedly something entirely unsettling about watching yourself crack and shatter. Cyclonus's quills stood alert and twitched nervously as he stared at the shattered pieces of himself.

"Now then, shall I kill ya' now? Explain my plan a lil'? Or maybe I could reflect myself again? Afta' all I gots enough power to do so now!"

"I really really didn't know! I knew it supposedly had a lot of storage space but I wasn't told there was a whole castles-worth!" Swindle grovelled a little.

Thunderhoof, however, was just pretty pissed off and was going to vent it all on Swindle regardless.

Gavin acquired one of the metal cooking implements from the wall, the long thin spike looked as though it would be adequately painful when stuck into various places on a being's body.

"Castles are kinda boring, shall we just fuck off outta here?" He distracted the two Seibertronians.

"Yeah… yeah, tha' small ones got tha' right idea! I can settle tha' score with that mirror-me!" Thunderhoof dropped any interest in Swindle.

"Wait, you were copied too!? Just like Steeljaw!" Swindle instantly got his attention back.

"From tha' sounds of it, I did better, got tha' miserable scrap's arm off!" Thunderhoof grinned, motioning with his hands the move that destroyed the duplicates limb "But 'e still got me in 'ere..."

"Shit, if there's 'nother you out there he's probably onto Cyclonus" Gavin brandishes his metal rod

"Oh, he's 'ere too? Yous came with a freakin' rescue party Swindle? It ain't even been a full solar orbit on 'dis world!"

"Well, your lackeys got the idea that I 'offed' you! As if I'd do so to such a wonderful customer!" He grinned, putting on the smarmy charm again "Cyclonus and his pe-, uh, accompaniment happened to be around at the time"

"Yeah, he got your goons to attack us instead!" Gavin corrected Swindle as to their unintended involvement.

"So? You lived!" He defended himself.

Thunderhoof turned with each back and forth between the two as if watching the words go between them.

"That's not the point! You just wanted to save your cowardly hide! At least with a missing arm Cyclonus will be able to tell it's not the real Thunderhoof, I guess"

"Why would you care? You know nothing about what he's really like or who he is!"

"Eh, he's the designated driver. You don't have a ship right now and I doubt Hoofy here's gonna let me take one"

"Yous a smart little thing" Thunderhoof butted in "But neither of yous is smart enough to have noticed those things up tha' stairs are movin' about"

"Ah."

Several footsteps and alien murmurs were muffled by the walls but the noise of a small army making its way through the castle halls was loud and obvious.

Cyclonus pulled himself upright as the mirror's surface wobbled ominously.

"I ain't that stupid but I'll simplify it for ya'. This thing 'ere was a 'peace offering' to end a war, see? But it was actually a trap, neva' got sprung tho. So tha' small army inside 'as been waiting for centuries to attack, see? They all became immortal, sturdy 'glass replicas' like me, long time ago, they ain't gonna shatter at the drop of a hat like ordinary glass, nah nah" Not-Thunderhoof swung for Cyclonus making sure his brief explanation wasn't opening a window for the latter to escape.

"So you're going to get yourself an invariably invincible army to take over whatever you want" Cyclonus snarled ducking below Not-Thunderhoofs fist.

"Ey, yous learnin'!" Not-Thunderhoof cheered as it swung its foot, knocking out Cyclonus's feet.

Cyclonus fell into the motion and rolled forwards, ending up behind the Not-Thunderhoof.

Cyclonus kicked out behind him only to hit where the Not-Thunderhoofs missing arm should be.

Taking the opportunity Not-Thunderhoof grabbed the outstretched limb with its good hand and flung Cyclonus over its shoulder, slamming him into the floor in front of him again.

Doubling over on the floor, Cyclonus sprang back at Not-Thunderhoof.

Grabbing him around the waist, he forced him backwards as he ran hunched into the stocky blue 'Seibertronian'.

Not-Thunderhoof dug his heels in, trying to stop Cyclonus from pushing him any further. Cyclonus responded by letting go and jumping upwards, headbutting it in the chin.

The attack sent Not-Thunderhoof staggering backwards as Cyclonus stood at his full height.

"Ooh, I'm saving yous all for myself" Not-Thunderhoof smiled.

He proceeded to scream and charge at Cyclonus with his head down, attempting to ram him with his horns.

Cyclonus grabbed his wide horns and instead vaulted over the charging duplicate.

Not missing a beat Cyclonus kicked out in mid-vault slamming his foot down onto Not-Thunderhoofs lower back sending him sprawling forwards, his chin making a crunching grind of a noise as he slammed into the ground.

There was some babbling from the sidelines as one of Thunderhoofs goons barged its way into the room.

Both combatants turned to look at the startled furry entity, who glanced between the two of them as many more goons started filling the corridor behind it. Its attention was mainly taken up by the lack of an arm on Thunderhoofs part.

"It sounded suspicious boss" The lead one uttered, still slightly scared of Thunderhoof even if he was somehow missing an arm.

"Yous all FOOLS!" Not-Thunderhoof barked at them "Grab him! I'm busy!"

The goons looked nervously between the two before streaming in after Cyclonus.

Cyclonus groaned, half-hoping the severely obvious lack of a limb would have given the imposter away, even to these buffoons, but they quickly scrambled towards him.

Turning tail, Cyclonus found it an easy leap to jump over a cable and up onto one of the smaller machines in the room.

Some of the goons clumsily clambered up to meet him while most tried to claw at his legs.

Casting a glance upwards, Cyclonus saw that Not-Thunderhoof had slipped into the mirror while no one was watching.

The goons continued their attacks, many claws scraping at his foot-plates as other fingers tried to worm around his ankles.

Rattling his quills, Cyclonus kicked out at the goons below, stomping on their badly placed fingers while casting a few punches out to his sides, trying to ward off the ones on the machines with him.

Not waiting for more to climb up and cut off his other side, Cyclonus carried on running along the machine tops, far more nimble than the horde of goons below.

He cleared them easily, only for them to swarm back around him a few moments later.

Fortunately, their rather moronic nature kept them from making too much progress, the ones that did met with a harsh blow from the spikes along Cyclonus's arms, leaving deep cuts across them.

Unfortunately, from his fairly open side, Cyclonus was struck full force at his waist. Winded and searing with pain, Cyclonus struggled against the object that struck him as it continued to push him.

He was forced along for a few feet until he was thrown off the machinery, sliding into the wall.

Wheezing and coughing, Cyclonus could barely see what was in front of him until it moved closer.

Not-Thunderhoof had come back, it seemed.

"See all I really needed to do at that point was just calls them out, I really am saving tha' pleasure of killing yous all for myself" He leant down with a devilish smirk, before grabbing Cyclonus' neck and forcing him to look towards the mirror.

Slowly climbing out the mirror was a tri-cloptic alien with slender legs, with more following it.


	8. Chapter 8

Thunderhoofs goons quickly lost all interest in their mysteriously-missing-an-arm boss as he choked the object of his ire, to stare stupefied at the triple-eyed aliens streaming steadily through the mirror.

The goons murmured worriedly to each other trying to look to their boss for answers, but found none from him as he gloated to his captive.

Many of the aliens from the mirror seemed confused and wary of their new surroundings, it was not the place they had been expecting, nor was it the welcome they were expecting.

New location or not they remembered what their task was and the front row of aliens reached into their belts and withdrew swords.

The swords got the goons attention as they squeaked angrily at each other and at those in front of them, the less smart of the bunch drove forwards at the new threat but ended up diving to the floor instead as the confused beings acknowledged their aggression and retaliated with swords.

Several of Thunderhoof's 'employees' dropped to the floor as the swords cut them deeply, the new aliens hadn't swung with much force seemingly startled and perturbed at the unfamiliar life-forms.

The rest took offence to this and grabbed any loose part they could find and brandished them as weapons, with a howl the group charged the aliens.

"Wait! No, you clods! What do you think you're doing!?" Not-Thunderhoof yelled as his goons went to war with the reflections watching them with furious eyes.

"Don't employ morons" Cyclonus grabbed his chance and put his foot in the Not-Thunderhoof's gut causing him to double over and let go.

Now free from the reflections grasp Cyclonus stood up and grabbed one of Not-Thunderhoofs horns using the wide horn as leverage Cyclonus flipped the duplicate onto it's back.

Swinging his foot round he went to stab the fake through the chin with his spur but the Not-Thunderhoof grabbed his foot and twisted him to the ground with it.

The daft goons left behind by the original Thunderhoof were of no use, it didn't matter if they got themselves killed, but Not-Thunderhoof was really losing his temper with Cyclonus.

Letting go of the foot Not-Thunderhoof went for the face, slamming his fist forwards with all of his body weight.  
Sadly with just the one fist remaining it was too easy for Cyclonus to roll out the way.

In a rather slow and sad attempt, the Not-Thunderhoof attempted to utilise his two small arms attempting to swipe at the purple body below him with the tiny claws, it was in vain as Cyclonus squirmed out from under him and any contact was too weak to actually cut.

Growling angrily Not-Thunderhoof sprang forwards, shouldering Cyclonus as he tried to stand sending the latter sprawling out across the floor only to promptly be covered by an unlucky Goon.

Cyclonus hissed and cawed urgently as he battered the squealing Goon off him, the mirror-alien that struck it advancing on him with its sword smeared with a streak of the unlucky Goons blood.

The alien raised its sword, not caring if it finished off the injured Goon or struck Cyclonus, but Not-Thunderhoof grabbed Cyclonus by the nape of the neck and flung him into the wall.

-

"So do any of us know why there's a castle here and why there was a group of aliens sleeping in it, or does Swindle do barely any research into the wares he sells?"

"I resent that implication" Swindle hissed, quickly getting it in before Thunderhoof answered

"No, tha' other me din' say a damn thing jus' showed up wit' a bone ta' pick an 'ere I am"

"Heh" Gavin mused a little to himself.  
Despite the potentially horrendous situation, Thunderhoof's thick accent made it all seem somewhat humorous.

"Well that's just perfect, sure we found you and found out you got duplicated but now we're trapped!" Swindle huffed crossing his legs and arms where he sat perched on the end of a table.

"Nah, let's just leave" Gavin shrugged

"That ain't possible, afta' shovin' me in 'ere tha' other me turned the power off, 'ence why I were down here avoidin' 'dem upstairs" Thunderhoof waved his hands while his smaller hand placed themselves upon his body, if it were his normal arms they'd be on his hips but the small arms didn't reach that far.

"Nah, Cyclonus turned it back on how else did we get here? Besides now you're missing the obvious 'cos then how else are those fuckers upstairs getting out!?" Gavin rooted himself squarely before Thunderhoof with his angriest glare once more attempting to make himself seem less at odds with the armoured aliens.

It was obvious Thunderhoof knew the human was right but he wasn't going to admit it.

It was also obvious Gavin intended to stay as long as it took to get a response from him.

"Right well I'm leaving" Swindle left, bounding up the stairs quickly.

"EY!" Thunderhoof broke off the stareing immediately, and dived up the stairs after the salesman.

Watching the two figures disappear upstairs Gavin reclaimed his metal spike-pole-thing with a growl and followed.

On the floor above there was no alien to be seen, unless Gavin counted Swindle and Thunderhoof but presently they were exempt from that observation.

Thunderhoof had caught up to Swindle and had grabbed him by the arm and was muttering something moodily in his native tongue, Swindle seemed to be accepting what he was saying and responding calmly.  
When Thunderhoof let go of his arm Swindle pointed the way to the mirror's exit.

"Honesty is the best policy? Or did you decide against trying to sell him the information?" Gavin sidled up next to Swindle as Thunderhoof angrily shoved at the doors in his way.

"Honesty has no place in the business world" Swindle muttered before following after Thunderhoof.

Swinging his metal rod onto his shoulder Gavin bounded up next to Swindle.

"Gonna thrash some moose-duplicate!" He yelled in an exceedingly half-assed attempt at making a tune with his words and with a fist he smacked Swindle's arm, the thought of getting into a scrap was almost familiar and comforting.  
Swindle quickly tightened up and hissed his shoulders bunching up into an angry ball.

"Oh gosh, what's your problem!?" Gavin side-eyed the alien

"Listen here" Swindle took on a snarling tone "Just because you caught me off guard ONCE doesn't mean you can parade 'round as if you're tough! You're just lucky so far that you've managed to deal a good hit or two! You're also lucky you're a bit of a novelty else people like Thunderhoof and Cyclonus would've crushed you into a wall by now!"

"Jesus, who pissed in your cereal this morning?" Gavin put his hands on his 'weapon' readying it for a direct swing to Swindle's face while pretending Swindle wasn't right.

"Argh!" Swindle continued to be angry as they closed the distance between themselves and Thunderhoof "I'm a member of the Combaticons y'know!? I'm elite! I don't have to be taking shit from some scruffy vagabond! Or off that petty criminal!"

"Whoa, dude if you're just getting pissy 'cos no one's taking you seriously as some 'elite' by yourself why don't you just piss off back to your 'Combaticon' buddies then? Prick. Y'know something else? 'Combaticons' sounds like a shit name!" Gavin found it hard to drop an argument as he snapped back at the alien.

"I KNOW!" Swindle suddenly threw all four of his arms in the air "It's a bloody pattern with all Decepticon sodding subgroups! Ooh, let's just merge a word that relates to us with 'Decepticon' by pretty much adding -con on the end of it! It sounds ridiculous but they do it! I argued against it but noo Onslaught thought it sounded good and the rest of us went with it! And besides! I don't even know what see-re-al is!"

Gavin stared at him a bit blankly, he wasn't quite expecting this, he half-thought that Swindle had had enough and might've started proving some kind of fighter skills, seeing as he was apparently an 'elite', but instead just burst out into a miniature rant.

"Decepticons? Adding '-con' to group names?" He repeated the parts he didn't quite understand.

"Huh? Oh yeah, you wouldn't know about that, would you? I doubt he'd have told yo- Uwugh!" his sentence cut out in a squawk as he walked into Thunderhoofs back.

Thunderhoof spun round to glare at him with the ferocity of someone who was about to lose it with his fists, but only produced a glare. Gavin peered around Thunderhoof's waist into the next room.

It was indeed the room with the mirror but it was larger and an odd creamy colour.  
However in front of the mirror were a series wobbling points in space. It looked like floating patches of smashed glass hung awkwardly on nothing.  
After a few moments, they wobbled some more before moving properly.  
The motion looked as though someone walked through the floating glass pieces only to have said glass coat their entire body perfectly.  
It was more of the aliens from the top level.  
Each time one of these shattered-glass-anomalies transformed into an alien, which immediately left through the mirror, another anomaly took its place before wobbling and continuing the process.

"Someone's figured out how t' make themselves infinite glass copies" Thunderhoof finally chose to enter into the room placing himself menacingly behind one of the anomalies looking ready to smash the alien it would create.

"Whatever, smash 'em on the other side moose boy!" Gavin pushed passed him and slipped between the two anomalies closest to the mirror "Getting out is the higher priority right?"

Thunderhoof already had his fist in the air, ready to lay it down with force on the anomaly he was focusing on.

The human's suggestion made far more sense and he left it to close the distance between himself and the portal. Swindle didn't need anyone to tell him and was already at the mirror's edge and slipping through before anyone could move, prompting the other two to dive through after him.

The scene outside was chaos.

A couple of the Goons employed by Thunderhoof nearly dead by the mirror, or injured at the edges of the room while an increasing amount of mirror-aliens both slipped out of the mirror or lay shattered on the floor as the Goons slowly realised their weak points and took advantage, but still got struck repeatedly by swords.  
There were a couple of dead Goons being dragged from the room, while made from brittle glass the swords wielded by their enemies was still dangerous.

The mirror-aliens squawked angrily amongst themselves more so than at their foes.  
Many tried to grab the guns held by, at most, five of the higher ranking Goons, curious at the item that shattered their limbs quite thoroughly.

Swindle and Gavin seemed least surprised at the mess, both of them saw the Goons clashing with the Mirror-aliens as an inevitable outcome when they thought about it.

Thunderhoof looked a cross between disgusted and angry as he surveyed the mess, but what caught his eye most was the action happening in the corner of the room.

Being the shortest in the room Gavin could barely see a thing, Swindle seemed flabbergasted at the mess happening before them and Thunderhoof looked so angry he might puke.

Without thinking his actions through, as per usual, Gavin grasped Thunderhoof's back his fingers found a tiny hold on the edge of his plates and Gavin was able to vault up onto Thunderhoofs back and hold onto his shoulder to view what the alien saw.

It was clearly angering him enough that he barely flinched at Gavin scaling up his back, much to the human's fortune.

Above the heads of all the quarrelling aliens, the sight of Thunderhoofs own horns stood out like a sore thumb.

It was indeed the duplicate Thunderhoof spoke of, missing arm and all.

Though now it's body was littered with scrapes and scratches, there were two twisted lumps on either side of its chest where its smaller arms should have been.  
One eye was rolled back into its skull forced back by deep scratches making it useless and limp, Or as limp as a glass-clone could be.

It was separated away from the rest of the fight in its own little corner of destruction, where the walls were cracked and broken and crumpled pieces of mangled metal littered the area each piece having found a new and short-lived purpose as a melee weapon.

Visible to both Thunderhoof and Gavin the duplicate was transfixed with a furious primal glare at Cyclonus.

Cyclonus who was oozing purple blood from his lip, shell cracked in numerous places his own small arms were no longer tucked up against his chest but hung limply, one twisted to an awkward angle, bumps and dents lined his entire body.  
His right eye had been hit so badly that even from their distance Gavin and Thunderhoof could plainly see the swollen bruise slowly envelope that side of his face as the purple Seibertronian groggily pulled himself from one of the large cracked dents in the wall.


	9. Chapter 9

Gavin regretted his spot on Thunderhoof's shoulder as the large alien stomped the ground with a shuddering force.

"EEYY YOO!" He belted out with enough force to shake his own body, his loud call echoed around the room shattering some of the recently emerged mirror-aliens entirely and causing many more to moan and sag as spindly cracks smothered their bodies.

All eyes were on him.

Not-Thunderhoof looked like a wild animal, his eyes near-glowing with rage and clouded with fury as he glared at the real Thunderhoof.

The Goons reacted more, suddenly angry and confused they wavered between the two Thunderhoof's, babbling amongst each other some even seemed to start having arguments.

The mirror-aliens squawked and hissed at each other, pointing at their surroundings and at the two Thunderhoof's, if anything they all seemed confused and angry.

Thunderhoof was still transfixed with his duplicate.

Sensing his vantage point might not be much of an advantage for him much longer Gavin tried to slowly step off Thunderhoofs back but instead found himself lurching forwards.

Thunderhoof surged forwards like an angry tidal wave, partially dragging Gavin along with him as the human panic-grabbed his shoulder before slamming into the ground behind Thunderhoof as he powered along, his body splitting the crowd like a snow plough.

Gavin struggled to a standing position, he grasped a hold of his metal pole and shuffled through the broken glass shards all of the aliens in the room seemed shocked and confused.

The loud, harsh, shattering crash was an obvious source of concern.

Looking up Gavin saw that Thunderhoof had not slowed down in his charge at all, he has locked horns with his own duplicate and had kept going, ramming the double full force into the wall sending sharp cracks up the copy's back and shattering half of one if it's horns into a fine dust.

The Goons cheered finally seeming to get over their own stupidity and became more energetic as their actual boss started throwing punches at his copy, with their new-found vigour, the Goons instantly resumed their fight with the Mirror-aliens.

Thunderhoofs furious duplicate tried blocking off his punches but only having one arm meant that most found their mark and its glass hide quickly started buckling and cracking away.

Despite the punches the two Thunderhoofs seemed to be placing most of their fight into their horns pushing at each other with all their might, the fake Thunderhoof struggled to maintain it's position the deep cracks along it's back weakened whatever strength it had to put into such a tussle and relied on the support of the wall to keep itself stable, and all while Thunderhoof continued to bare down on it with all the force of a large animal of which he could be compared to.

Their tussle remained in the corner and away from the rest of the aliens as the fighting picked back up again, the Goons fought with much more energy and seemed to be faring better than before but the Mirror-aliens seemed to be gaining the upper hand as more of them spilled from the mirror, reflections of reflections stepped out saw the fighting and charged to help their brethren.

All the aliens had a clear height advantage over Gavin and seemed to be oblivious to his very presence.

They were also rather oblivious the rising energy in his blood, the rising memories of fights and battered faces.

They were oblivious to the sharp implement he gripped with tight white knuckles.

They were also oblivious to the fact he was Scottish.

Tight pounding beats throbbed through the very air of the room, muffling words into strings of garbled grunts, just like Gavin remembered.  
Something staggered in front of him, it's arm was gone and chunks cracked out its body.  
There wasn't anything to think other than 'swing' and 'hit', maybe thinking to aim the swings came into mind every-so-often.

He might have been making a sound but he didn't know if it was coming from him or not, but the straining of his arms were real.  
The throbbing tug of fast, spontaneous movement propelled his arms outwards and his makeshift weapon hit with a painfully loud thwack-ing crunch.  
The bedlam of fighting figures filled the room, individuals were lost in the seething mass.

It was great  
Just like old times.  
Just like normal.  
Gavin knew how to do this.  
This was more his language.  
What he understood.  
The kind of communication so purely physical and undeniable he understood it, no matter his age.  
Why were his eyes hot and blurry?

Stumbling backwards Gavin placed his fists to his eyes, hoping a quick rub would sort them out.  
The floor was glistening like a bad disco the sound of crunching footsteps trudging through the glass shards was almost as loud as the fighting itself.

By now most of the older, tougher mirror-soldiers had been dispatched and only fresh fragile ones remained, still streaming from the mirror and diving without question into the mayhem.

The False Thunderhoof was the only notable one left, and it was still locking horns with the real Thunderhoof.

Gavin caught sight of Swindle.

He actually seemed to be behaving more like the 'elite' he claimed to be. He had made a weapon out of the shattered end of a Mirror-soldiers arm and was currently vaulting off the head of a stumbling Goon somersaulting over the heads of many, landing a perfect pirouette while fending off approaching figures with his 'weapon'.  
The weapon was clearly more effective on the goons rather than the mirror-soldiers, as it cut the former but scratched the latter, Swindle didn't seem to care, as long as he kept others away from himself he was fine.

When a Mirror-soldier passed him by, trying to swing its sword Swindle yanked it's arm behind it's back, kicking its shoulder the limb shattered instantly before bowing and flipping a second approaching warrior over his back.

The Thunderhoof's were still tangled up in each other neither breaking their stance or glare, both entirely focused on each other.

Gavin tried to look around for Cyclonus, his and the other Seibertronian's colours stood out against the more brown-ish-yellow of the Goons and silvery glimmer of the Mirror-soldiers.  
Gavin tried to spot his horns, distinctive and above-the-crowd but absent, it may have been due to being shorter than those around him but Gavin struggled to find where Cyclonus was amongst the bedlam.

Gavin didn't see much else as another Mirror-soldier collapsed on him, it's legs and head gone.

The big heavy body took far longer than it should have to move. Crawling out from beneath it Gavin reclaimed his 'weapon' and began pondering where and who to stick it in to.

The fight seemed to be taking a while, Thunderhoof's Goons seemed intent to fight. At least until the victor of the Thunderhoof-squared fight arose and commanded otherwise.

The Mirror-soldiers wandered out confused and face-first into a fight, there was little else for them to do other than join in.

The new soldiers shattered easily as their bodies were still newly emerged and brittle, this left the battle at a steady standstill, the Goons were able to destroy the new soldiers relatively easily but the continual stream of them was ever-so-slowly pushing them back.

Absently waving the sharp implement around as the dots slowly joined themselves up in his head, Gavin turned to the mirror.

Dots successfully joined and an idea formed, Gavin hollered as he bound over to the mirror, it was quiet after the latest soldiers had come through, it almost looked innocent unless you saw how it only reflected one Thunderhoof, Gavin, Swindle and a lot of writhing Goons.  
With no soldiers in the way, you were finally able to get a sight of Cyclonus, just.  
There were fleeting glimpses of something purple, bleeding purple moving between Goons and through the moving bloodstains that were the Mirror-soldiers.

The blood that coated them still being reflected was the only indication of their presence in the room.

Amidst the loud furore behind him Gavin didn't hear the mirror start humming louder, but the surface of it, rippling like water, did. Jerking back at the movement Gavin did what was the natural response for him.

His weapon made a loud THWANG-CRACK noise as it hit the mirror's edge before snapping into two halves, the part with the pointy-bit went flying and shattered, leaving Gavin with a short jagged handle.

Howling angrily Gavin kept to what he knew best and swung for the mirror again only this time he tried to shatter its surface. Instead, he swung and just kept going as he phased through its surface like it wasn't there, as a consequence Gavin kept going too, wobbling and stumbling around on the spot, he had to grab hold of the mirror's edge to prevent himself from instead going face-first into it.

Taking a few seconds to steady himself from the spin Gavin froze when the blade of a sword rested on his arm.

Looking up, Gavin stared at the tilted face of a newly emerged mirror-soldier.

The being seemed confused, its eyes conveyed little in the way of thought or emotion, it's body and shape was unrefined the repeated copying, even from a mirror, was slowly beginning to falter.

What little thought and emotion it showed seemed to centre around being confused about Gavin, curious but wary it used the sword to gently touch at the human.

Gavin didn't like the blade being so uncomfortably close.

Even thinking back to the last time something so sharp was held so close made Gavin clench up, both physically and emotionally.  
It made every hair stand on end.

The mirror-soldier seemed to note some sort of physical motion from him as it moved the blade away and chirped.

The world had gone a bit blurry again and his eyes were hot.  
There was still something sharp in his hands, clenching it in his fists Gavin remembered the feeling of not-chemically-induced fire in his veins.

Swirling round he launched himself at the mirror-soldier. The soldier garbled something in surprise as the small human flew at it, the broken tube in its hand was pressed against its throat as the human swung itself onto the soldiers back.

Gavin grabbed the broken end of the once-weapon and pulled, pressing his body weight onto the soldiers back and pulling the weapon upwards against its throat lodging it under its jaw.  
The soldier's head twisted back and as Gavin pulled back more the head snapping off as Gavin let go of the Soldier dropping behind him and using his body weight to complete the manoeuvre.  
The soldier dropped, but everything still felt on fire.

Gavin dropped his old weapon, now laced with blood from where his hand was cut open on the jagged end and grabbed the soldier's sword.

A much better weapon.

The mirror always put out more than one soldier, a howling shout accompanied Gavin as he refused to stand upright but spun on the ground like some demented animal.

He swung the butt of the swords handle round, it connected with a satisfying crunch to one of the two soldiers behind him.  
The startled alien took it's 'friend' down with it, the still fragile glass of its ankles shattered sending is legs flying behind it and tangling with the others.  
Both of their legs snapped and crumpled up as they clattered to the ground, the one soldier fell on top of the one Gavin knocked down its weight cracking the latter's back, the shock sending cracks through its own body as well.

Neither seemed capable of returning to an upright stance like Gavin did.  
Cheering at himself Gavin kicked the downed soldiers the fragility of their necks, along with their weakened bodies let their heads snap off with ease.  
The sword he had used was as equally brittle as the soldiers and had cracked all the way through, now useless it was dropped next to the ruined bodies of its former wielder, now shattered just like it was.

If only the mirror would do that.

He wanted to destroy it with his hands, cloudy anger told him he had to, it didn't matter about how bad his hands would be after, he wanted to feel it break.  
Feel it snap.  
But it didn't.

An irregular mirror needed something irregular to smash it.

His own tattered reflection in the mirror's surface was of no importance as Gavin scanned the place for something of use, he looked through the bedlam of fighting aliens across the plain room where speakers were dotted along the walls in regular intervals.

Perfect.

One reflection seemed to be moving a little like it was an image on a broken DVD skipping through frames.

As if a duplicate was attempting to be made.

Gavin stared at the reflection with a grin, it was just the person he wanted to see.

Swindle.


	10. Chapter 10

Between sandy fur and deteriorating glass bodies, Swindle was easy to keep track of.

His brand of dirty yellow dotted with purple kept him as a noticeable figure amongst the confused somewhat lagging fighting.

It was time to put his diminutive height to use amongst the 7-8-foot-plus aliens.

Barely a head was turned as Gavin slipped his way through the squabbling crowd.

Goons had long since gone on the defensive, tired and wary of the ever increasing threat.

Gavin made a mental note that he should actually find out what they were rather than internally referring to them as 'goons'.

Swindle seemed to have far more stamina and was keeping everything at bay, maintaining a small sphere of isolation.

Gavin couldn't tell if he saw him coming.

He probably heard him, the idea that Gavin had flew out of his mouth in a jumbled mess of wheezed words.

Another human probably wouldn't have been able to understand it.

Whether he saw - or heard - him coming wasn't made apparent as Swindle barely reacted to him.

The careering human flung himself at the alien, and despite hitting him head on, barely made a difference.

Swindle didn't stumble or move back but softened slightly as he saw Gavin drop backwards and to the floor.

Gavin only grunted in annoyance as he stumbled upright, Swindle, however, grinned slowly.

Aliens of both living and mirror variety squeaked and dived out the way as the purple smudge of a human rolled through them, skidding to a halt at the wall.

Likewise, none of them stood in the way of Swindle as he walked up to Gavin smirking at the distance he threw the fleshy alien.

"How glorious that you run into me here, where no one would bat an eye at some dead body…" Swindle crooned.

"Fuck off yer' shite prick" said Gavin.

Swindle snorted, grabbing the staggered human in one hand, easily sliding him up the wall.

"You think you're smart? You think you're strong?" He spat venomously while Gavin squirmed in his grasp "You just caught me by surprise! I've had it with cocky little Retrorats like you thinking they're king of the universe!"

Swindle waved his arm and flipped Gavin to the floor.

"Stupid aliens like you, thinking they can just hop on a spaceship and parade around the galaxy like all their problems are gone!" He continued to snap advancing upon the dazed human.

Gavin's mind was rolling, he wasn't expecting Swindle to turn on him.

He wasn't expecting him to be happy either but he just thought he'd be able to pull him to the side at least.

Everything around him rolled like he was in a sphere. Gavin was only certain of the ground he was sprawled upon as he squirmed along it.

One of these blurry indents in the wall had to be a door.

He was halted by a foot dropping onto his back, the sudden weight and pressure squeezing all the air out of him.

"You wouldn't survive on your own" Swindle's mocking voice rang through the haze.

Gavin replied with an "ugh", or at least he thought he did.

"You probably won't even make it to your next destination, you snack!"

"Let's take it outside shit-moth-eck, damnit" Gavin managed attempted a completely eloquent and sophisticated comeback.

It was a gentle snarl but accompanied with a not so gentle motion.

As if accepting his proposition Swindle stepped off the human only to swing him into the adjacent hallway.

So he was near a door.

The equally as dismally coloured hallway was far cooler than the main room with all the fighting.

A few goons were bunched around the doorway batting away anything they deemed too close, as they too revelled in the slightly cooler air trying to catch a small amount of rest.

The cool air thankfully managed to return the surrounding area to a stationary pose in Gavin's mind.

It gave him enough clarity to finally focus.

Even if that focus was taken up by the advancing Swindle, a rather dark look etched along his face.

"You… YOU…" He snarled "Walking among Decepticons like you BELONG… A pathetic little ego boosted just because I was off-guard… You don't know anything! You'd be dead if it weren't for this little 'accident'! I should have slaughtered you right there on that miscreant's ship! It's a foul miracle you even made it! You know nothing! You don't even know who you're flying with!"

"Like I said he's just the designated driver…" Gavin pushed himself up the wall "I'm just hanging around until I can bugger off"

"Hah!" Swindle snorted "That might be the smartest thing you've said! Like I said you don't know how lucky you are to even be alive. You know nothing about the type of people out here, trust me, once you get 'boring' you'll be killed"

"Hey now I ain't t' smartest about here fuckface but clearly I'M the only one who's thought of how to stop this fuckery rather than giving vague insults about everyone" Gavin sneered as Swindle now stood barely a foot away from him, too caught up in his own snarling rant about Decepticons and seemingly ill-intended remarks about Cyclonus of which he seemed intent on spewing.

Guess he didn't actually view him as much of a 'pal' either, only using the word to fake friendship.

Swindle stopped - finally - and peered down at him in the kind of manner you'd look down your nose at some filth.

Well, it would be that sort of look if Swindle had a nose.

One day Gavin was going to unleash the 'how do you smell? Terrible' gag upon this species.

Staring at Swindle's noseless face, he swore to do it.

"Are you thick?" Swindle said.

The words reminded Gavin of his predicament and how it was maybe not the best time to use an old crap joke.

"Possibly" Gavin replied before his brain had the chance to fire a neuron.

Swindle snorted at him.

"Naturally" Swindle was giving him some leeway to talk but with zero patience left, it was a diminishing timeslot.

"Look, man, crab, dude, I don't wanna be here in this place any more than you do" Gavin could feel his ribcage throb with what will be an impressive bruise in the morning "But everyone, so caught up in, fightin'... an shit… there's a way to just stop all of this, stop it now and bugger off"

"I don't particularly care!" Swindle snapped "Problems happen, oh well, I'll just slip out while everyone's distracted. Let them deal with it!"

"An' what, what if Hoof-guy comes after you… you did sell him that mirror, you'd be the one he'd go after… for not findin' this shit out for him.. Right?" Gavin still tried to barter with the alien, gradually finding the strength to pull himself up on his feet.

The bitter after-feeling was creeping back through him, the way he always felt after a fight.

A unidentifiable feeling that could easily be bitterness at losing, the urge to fight more or a stab of self-hatred.

Gavin continued regardless.

"I mean it's that or admit someone swindled you Swindle!" Was the only thing he managed to finish off with, despite more words floating about his mind.

Swindle did stand still, he looked to be weighing the options up.

Until he shrugged.

"I don't know if you've noticed but I don't care, I can talk him round, I always do" Swindle seemed nonchalant.

"Ugh, come on man! How about this then! If you deal with this problem, imagine how happy Thunderhoof would be! You helped save his ass, that's guaranteed future business right? He'd owe you or somethin'? He'd be in your debt!" Gavin slumped against a wall wondering if all of space was going to be such a hassle.

"Oooooh" Swindle's voice took a sudden turn "I do like keeping people on the string of debt… I could use him to get my hands on so many things, I could claw my way into all the markets! No one would cross me again if they knew I had protection!"

"Guessing people don't care about your 'elite' status then" Gavin wondered why he'd need protection if he was as he claimed.

Swindle snarled and grabbed Gavin's hair.

"You can shut up and continue being a useless lump of scrap!" He took clear offence at being 'belittled' "You are going to tell me your idea, then I will ensure future income from these idiots!"

He promptly let go and let Gavin stagger backwards clinging to his head.

"AH! You prick!" he swore, the throbbing sensation spreading across him intermingled with the still-tender skin from being electrocuted all those weeks ago.

Still staggering, Gavin stumbled away, half trying to put distance between himself and Swindle while trying to keep himself moving, awake and in-focus.

He knew what he was looking for, he just didn't know what it looked like.

The walls had some symbols on them.

But it was no use, they were all in 'alien'.

If only there were visible cable's leading from the speakers to the room with the microphone or whatever.

Giving up, Gavin jabbed a finger at one of the speakers.

"Eh!" He grunted as if he explained everything.

Swindle glared at him.

Gavin groaned before adding some structure to his grunting.

"Where?" He gestured at them again.

"I doubt calling for help is going to save your sorry ass" Swindle was still aboard his hate-train.

"EeeeeEEEEEeeeh!" Gavin's voice wobbled as frustration befuddled his attempts at talking "The room where you talk and it goes out through those things, that, where is it?"

Having been enough information for him to understand Swindle shrugged.

"A loud enough sound wave to shatter the duplicates, how terribly simple"

"Shut up! I don't see you coming up with a plan!"

"I said simple, not that it wouldn't work!"

Gavin sagged against the wall, if Swindle wasn't right about him needing the element of surprise to actually get any sort of upper-hand in a fight with him, he'd punch him again.

"Just… Goin' there" He shrugged and pulled himself from the wall and began stumbling down the hallway.

It quickly became empty as any life in the building was crowded around the fighting.

The deteriorating fight between the non-stop flow of glass-clones and Thunderhoof's subordinates, Thunderhoof himself just angrily bludgeoning his own duplicate, too furious with it to do much else and whatever Cyclonus was doing.

Any actual employees of this place had scarpered, putting distance between themselves and the scuffle.

Thankfully it got even cooler the further away from the room they got, Gavin liked this more, the cool air felt more homely and he stretched into it.

Quickly feeling more invigorated by the change in atmosphere Gavin felt his mood improve and his thoughts straighten out.

Then Swindle followed him.

"Up the stairs" He barked, "It's up there"

"Ugh" Gavin spat back as if he'd made an awesome comeback.

The stairs looked like nothing spectacular.

Like any other set of stairs that could be found anywhere on Earth.

Not that Gavin quite knew what he expected from 'space stairs' there wasn't any reason for them to be that different.

He still wished there was a lift or escalator instead as he grumpily grabbed the handrail and used it to drag himself up the steps.

Swindle had overtaken him easily and was already on his way to where the sound systems of this building were.

He lead the way into a room with one wall covered by screens, probably indicating energy levels and other statuses, presumably so any problems could be announced to workers, who'd subsequently go and fix it.

One fuzzy microphone-looking thing sat on a desk at one end of the room with buttons at its base and a single chair before it, surrounded by piles of paper and data readings.

"So the plan is press buttons and keep screaming!" Gavin announced like Swindle hadn't already figured out what his intentions with this room were "We keep going until the mirror is gone! No more mirror, no more clones, no more bullshittery and we can all go home!"

"What!? Are you completely stupid?" Swindle spun on the spot, shocked as if Gavin had told him some life-changing secret "Destroy the mirror!? We can't do that! The duplicates, yes, the mirror? No!"

"What?" Gavin couldn't fathom what was going on now.

It was simple, wasn't it?.

What was the problem?

"I said we can't destroy the mirror!" Swindle argued again.

"But… but why?" Gavin couldn't contain his light-headed confusion.

"If we destroy the mirror, Thunderhoof will want a refund!"


	11. Chapter 11

"A… Are you shitting me?" Gavin stared dumbfounded.

"I certainly hope not" Swindle's minimal grasp on Earthly expressions let that one fly over his head.

Gavin grabbed his head, it hurt, it was pounding, everything stung.

He wanted to sleep.

For several days.

No endlessly, he wanted to sleep.

He suddenly felt at the very end of his rope and intensely aware of how much he'd been blundering into things.

He had been acting like he belonged, trying to find some footing out in space, even if he relied on badgering the only names he knew into getting him set up.

A Human seemingly outmatched in every way by this race of crab people.

Bloody.

Crabs.

And then there was this.

Reaching out and fumbling with the microphone Gavin jabbed the buttons and twisted the ones that turned out to be tiny dials.

"Come here you imbecile!" The pathetic display had clearly angered Swindle enough that he stepped in.

Grabbing the microphone from Gavin's hand Swindle twisted and pressed buttons with far more precision and the speakers began emitting a wobbling note. The sound they emitted wavered up and down in intensity as Swindle moved dials.

Gavin watched him work on the device, plotting some minor revenge with his next actions.

They had to make a sound strong enough and with the right pitch to shatter the mirror.

It was made of some alien-glass stuff, how would Gavin know what pitch to use to shatter it.

But he did know these 'Seibertronians' were adept at a wide range of vocalisations.

As Swindles tweaking on the device slowed down with a mildly confused frown, he looked over the device as if hoping he did that right, apparently not used to messing around with sound systems.

He seemed somewhat satisfied with what he'd done.

"How can I make you squawk?" Gavin asked, probably ruining his intentions.

"What?" Swindle covered the mic with one hand, preventing its premature use.

"You guys use more pitches and stuff when you talk, so If you shriek you can make a higher pitch that'll shatter it!" Gavin explained himself as if it excused his following behaviour.

Trying to be as quick as possible to avoid retaliation Gavin reached out and grabbed one of Swindle's smaller arms, identifying it as a possible weak point.

The shell was hard in his hand and he yanked on it as hard as he could.

It had somewhat the right effect, Swindle did remove his hand from the mic and squawked irritably, the noise booming out across the facility.

Except it also sent Gavin tumbling back grasping his hand.

When he pulled the small limb twisted to get away, being just that bit stronger than it appeared it loosened Gavin's grip on it. A grip that was still tight but now slipped down the arm.

This revealed the shell to have the same texture as sandpaper and Gavin tumbled back not just from losing his grip on the limb but from doubling over around his hand, pressing it into himself wincing at the burning heat spreading across it.

"What the fuck man!?" He gasped.

Swindle proceeded to laugh, taking amusement in the small alien's misfortune.

"Now to make sure!" He ignored Gavin and promptly smacked the microphone down on the table.

The resulting sound boomed out from every speaker with enough intensity to devolve into a horrible static mess as the speakers struggled to produce the right sound, the walls rattled and vibrated as the noise powered through the building.

It wasn't as bad in the communications centre but it was loud enough to send Gavin the rest of the way down to the floor.

Outside however in the centre of the mess it had the desired effect.

The multiple speakers throughout the room, thrummed to life, sending everything and everyone in the huge room rattling.

The glass duplicates promptly shattered barely lasting a fraction of a second under the sound-based assault.

The room rained with glittering specks of glass as all of the furred employs doubled over grasping their ears and shielding themselves from the raining glass-dust.

Thunderhoof winced as the sound hammered into his head while his duplicate promptly dropped to the floor in several pieces.

The mirror shook and wobbled across the floor a few inches, the shuddering glass adding its own few notes to the cacophony before it flopped over into a sea of glass, it's own surface cracking and joining the mess.

Gavin still clung to his head and couldn't bare to get up, why couldn't this room be relatively sound-proof? Or at least more sound-proof.

Swindle flipped a switch and set down the microphone, he cleared his throat lightly, his entire demeanour suddenly chipper.

"Now remember, you shut up and I tell everyone how I just saved their asses!" he cooed.

Gavin wanted to say something, his mind screamed to say something, curse the universe, curse Swindle, curse something but nothing came out and he watched Swindle skip out the room, leaving him to find his own way.

One Gavin would find after a few moments of lying on the floor.

Downstairs Swindle stepped over groaning bodies, his footsteps heard by everyone as the glass crunched beneath any movement.

Cyclonus was sat down on a box at the edge of the room staring at the floor with an unreadable expression, quills were flared out however as if an indirect shield against any conversations.

Thunderhoof held the largest fragment of his duplicates face, crushing it in his hands smiling lightly at its demise enjoying the feel of a part of it shattering in his grasp.

"Boy am I glad to see two such dear customers so safe and sound!" He greeted the two with open arms.

"Shut up" Thunderhoof frowned, bringing a hand to his face he rubbed his eyes, glaring and groaning head probably pounding from the prior mess of noise.

"Oh come on now! I did just save your lives! No one here would've lasted against such an endless assault!" Swindle faked a hurt look "I couldn't bear to think of such wonderful patrons of mine getting hurt!"

"Yous means our money" Thunderhoof corrected him.

"Regardless of why I saved you" Swindle did not deny his accusation "You're safe thanks to me!"

Thunderhoof eyed him suspiciously.

"You wants somethin' don't 'ya?"

"Just a lift back to my ship after this vagabond and his pet took me away!" Swindle took a moment to answer, having to prevent himself from saying something like 'compensation' else Thunderhoof might get the idea for a refund.

Cyclonus grunted irritably at him but at least started to stir from whatever daze he was in, only to quietly look around the room with a frown.

"I doubt that's all yous want, but it's manageable" Thunderhoof seemed to allow him that leeway "So what actually brings you to this part a' space?" He turned his attention away from Swindle.

Cyclonus didn't grace him with a look but his face betrayed the look of someone putting together dots.

"He was looking for some Earth-stuff!" Swindle answered, "So he came to me then your goons forced us here!"

"Ah 'dat lil thing" Thunderhoof had somehow calmed down immeasurably since the last time he spoke to Swindle, crushing the last fragment of his duplicate apparently catharsis enough for him for be tolerable to the trader's presence.

"Yep! I don't sell anything from Earth!... Not yet" He corrected himself, a grin spreading across his features as the new business possibilities swam through his head "Need anything for your pet? It has fur, right? A brush? I can cut you a deal on one…"

Cyclonus promptly looked around the room again.

"Where is it?" He eventually concluded.

Swindle didn't move but Thunderhoof entertained the question and gave a look around, though his attention was more devoted to glaring at his goons who were tending to each other and desperately looking anywhere to not meet his moody gaze.

"Tell ya' what buddy!" Swindle clasped his hands together "I'll help ya make some 'missing pet' posters and give you half off the printing cost!"

Cyclonus squinted at him angrily, ignoring the twinges it sent through the darkened bruise across his face.

"No"

"Fine, don't say I didn't offer!" Swindle wagged a finger "You won't get such a good deal elsewhere! Even if it's probably still skulking around this building"

Cyclonus raised an eyebrow, and Swindle shut up.

"Fine. It's upstairs" He relented.

Cyclonus gave a short huff as an answer and headed to the door.

Swindle turned to follow Thunderhoof as the latter proceeded to make demands of his employees and bark both questions and orders at them, sending the things skittering across the room in a panic.

On the outside, several of Thunderhoofs employees hid in the corridor as if staying there and looking innocent would lessen whatever angry shouting was being dished out on them.

Ignoring them Cyclonus headed to the stairs, something moved gingerly on the next floor up, so Cyclonus waited.

On the first floor, Gavin regretted everything.

He'd given into his tired body and let himself lay motionless on the floor for a while.

The only reason he was getting up was because he noticed what was happening.

His joints stiffened and his flesh tingled.

It was descending down a pain-spiral.

He should've kept moving.

It wouldn't have made the eventual pain any less but at least he'd be able to keep himself in motion.

He had to grab the side of the desk to pull himself up, it didn't matter how much he screamed at his body it refused to move.

In the end, Gavin slid up onto his feet like the most unenthusiastic slug ever seen.

Even on his feet he still needed to rest against the desk.

He was sure it had to have been an hour or more by the time his legs moved enough to achieve motion.

Each leg moved like a lump of stone and neither knee performed its job of 'bending' very well.

He must have been a sight.

He forgot just how all over the sensations and the inevitable pain was after a fight.

At least he'd proved himself right?

He took out three of those mirror-guys! Three compared to many everyone else had probably managed to dispatch.

He still did it though! He took down some aliens! Some alien duplicates! But still!.

The stairs weren't too far away and Gavin was soon shuffling through the doors.

The steps were, unfortunately, a bit bigger than they were on Earth, he didn't know why he hadn't paid attention to that before, but now it seemed far more daunting.

Wrapping his arms around the handrail Gavin found himself leaning heavily into the rail, using it to slide his body down as he carefully stepped down each step.

A soft thud and grunt accompanied each step as he made his way down, he debated about stopping for a rest along the tiny platform where the stairs doubled over to fit within the small area they were built.

Turning the corner the area below was filled with purple as Cyclonus had apparently come to find him.

Not sure what to say or do Gavin fell back on his default response and cast the battered alien a glare.

It had absolutely no effect as he barely twitched, watching Gavin plod down the rest of the steps.

"What you looking at?" Gavin snapped trying to pretend that he didn't feel small now he was hunched over, sore and painful, while Cyclonus still stood upright and stupidly tall.

Cyclonus made a resigned sigh of a noise before moving.

Gavin once again regretted himself even existing over what happened next.

All Gavin knew was that something sharp went towards his face and before he could control it an ice-cold dagger of fear smashed into his head and heart eliciting a panic squeal as he tried to jerk his head away from the sharp things.

The sharp things, however, were Cyclonus's claws as the alien decided to brush off some glass shards that clung to the human's messy hair.

Cyclonus visibly faltered at Gavin's strangled squeal and sudden jerky movements, confusion, and was that panic? evident on his face.

Breathing heavily and loudly from that brief moment of panic Gavin refused to look at Cyclonus as he scurried out the door.


	12. Chapter 12

The goons in Thunderhoofs employ had organised themselves into groups, Thunderhoof marched between the groups and barked orders.

By the time Gavin shuffled into the main generator room, there were but a few of them left, they seemed to be the leaders of the groups as they passed Thunderhoofs orders to the rest of their kind.

The room also happened to be goddamn pretty.

Or at least Gavin found himself quickly distracted by the shimmering sparkle of the floor, if not for the fact some areas were stained with blood from some unlucky goons it would be a solid carpet of crunchy shine.

Swindle seemed to be standing by Thunderhoof, the smile he had on his face showed that he clearly had wormed his way into some sort of 'good side' with Thunderhoof and was acting as if nothing remotely bad had happened.

Thunderhoof was also ignoring him quite a bit.

Gavin was quietly aware of a figure closing in behind him.

"I'm leaving" Cyclonus uttered.

"Not gonna say bye to your 'buddies'?" Gavin still didn't want to look back.

"Wouldn't use that to describe them…" Gavin could feel Cyclonus shift positions behind him and begin to move away "It's pointless to hang about further"

"Right" Gavin leant back a little finally pulling himself somewhat upright and crossing his arms watching the scene in front of him.

Thunderhoof had found the empty mirror frame and didn't look happy.

Gavin felt compelled to watch what happened next but the tiny sensible part of his brain reminded him that Cyclonus was the one who was for sure, allowing him a relatively safe passage to somewhere.

Peeling himself from whatever was going to happen Gavin stumbled down the hallway to follow Cyclonus away.

"Wait" He called out, Cyclonus didn't look but slowed down, by approximately one step "Swindle. He has yer' data-jabber-thingy… That thing"

Cyclonus visibly sagged in front of him.

"He swiped my Data Injector?" He mumbled.

"Aye, that thing"

Cyclonus sighed again and turned around, ignoring Gavin he thudded past and swerved into the big room.

Whatever happened the trio had gone back to their native tongue and squabbled.

He doubted Cyclonus was layering on the threats and insults, he probably was doing nothing more than standing there and loudly demanding the device back while Swindle babbled.

It was over a few moments after it began.

Gavin couldn't resist his curiosity and stumbled over to peer around the door.

The mirror frame had been brought down over Swindle's head.

It hung around his waist like an awful skirt, the broken circuitry on the back nothing more than a vague pattern by now.

Swindle looked irritated but not annoyed like it was a regular minor inconvenience to have something smashed over his head.

It also appeared to have been put there by Thunderhoof rather than Cyclonus as the former rubbed his hands with a satisfied smile.

Cyclonus was already half-way back to the door and ignoring whatever Thunderhoof suddenly shouted after him.

He clutched his Data Injector in one hand.

Deciding not to stand in his way, Gavin stepped back and let him go by before following, a few steps behind, though.

The trip back to Cyclonus's ship was silent.

Cyclonus did not want to talk, and Gavin wasn't sure if or what he should or could say.

The silence was eventually broken, but it was broken by the sounds of the ship as the door shut behind the two of them and doors opened in front of them as they made their way undoubtedly to the piloting room.

Cyclonus sagged into his chair as did Gavin.

Aside from being purple, it was probably the first time they matched each other.

The silence screamed at Gavin and he had to break it with something.

Looking Cyclonus up and down he latched onto something to say.

"Purple blood?"

Cyclonus grunted at his question.

"Steel-face had bluey blood"

Cyclonus grunted again.

"Is that normal? We only have red blood" Gavin tried to get a word out of him.

Cyclonus made a sighing grunt noise before taking the controls and manoeuvring the ship into the air and gradually off-planet.

"Can I ask what Decepticons are? Swindle mentioned the Combaticons" Gavin pried for more information.

Cyclonus rolled his eyes.

"Decepticon… that is… ugh, how you say?... Tribe? No, my people, somewhat, the group I belong to… Eh, that is good enough for now" He gave up halfway through his sentence.

"Combaticons are a subgroup then?" Cyclonus nodded tiredly to his question.

"Do you belong to a subgroup?" Cyclonus shook his head.

"What about that Mega-guy? Swindle almost implied you were avoiding him" Gavin could feel the onset of verbal diarrhoea but had to do something to waylay the silence and push away any unwelcome thoughts about his uncertain future.

He was going to be dumped someplace and he doubted he was going to be left with much information to help himself.

"You don't need to know any more about Decepticons or our leader" Cyclonus finally allowed himself to croak out a few words.

"Ah. So he's your boss?" Gavin continued regardless.

"Es-en-two-alley yes" Cyclonus frowned at himself and at the conversation for not ending.

"Okay… That's good, I mean now if I ever run into another See- uh, Seib… guy, again I can slip by a bit, y'know…" He tried to justify his own conversation.

Cyclonus looked to the side, clearly, some thoughts crossed his mind and his face twitched, there was something, something he wanted to say like he was going to make a snappy remark or tell him how wrong he was.

But he didn't and turned away from Gavin.

He proceeded to toy with his re-acquired Data Injector and repeated what he had done after the sandy-planet and 'injected' himself with something marked as medical.

"That thing. How does it work?" Gavin asked something he actually really wanted to know now he thought about it.

He'd seen it be used medically and to help them speak English, it was strange, two different applications for one odd little device.

"Un… important" Cyclonus sighed, for the first time since Gavin stowed away aboard his ship, Cyclonus sounded genuinely tired rather than irritated-tired.

Gavin frowned a little as Cyclonus thumbed about with controls, the same one he had done before to set the ship to follow a pre-planned route so no one would have to handle the controls.

It was probably useless and unwise to probe for more questions.

Even if he really, really wanted to find out more.

Regardless of if it was information about his homeworld or about how to function out in space he really wanted to know.

Should he get a Data Injector? Would it even work for him? How else would he understand other species? What kind of currency was used around here?

Wordlessly Cyclonus left Gavin to wander off to his own 'room' of his own accord as he slumped out of the room, slowly disappearing into the ship.

The ship that was probably still locked away from him.

Gavin wondered about heading back to his 'room'.

It had blankets in and had food, and he was hungry.

But this room was relatively warm, he was already sat down, and he still hurt like hell.

Gavin wiggled his feet free of his shoes and tucked himself up on the chair, it would do, not like he hasn't slept on a chair before.

The lights seemed to automatically dim, as if aware he was about to sleep.

It was helpful and internally Gavin actually felt slightly grateful for it, it was the small things.

Through heavy eyelids, Gavin watched the stars.

Stars no other human had ever seen before.

Vast and endless.

It was a beautiful sight.

He should probably try to plan ahead, be sensible, figure out what to do when he was alone and not following a tired grumpy crab-man around.

He would at least attempt to remember but knew he'd probably forget or not ask in favour of something more impulsive.

At least, for now, he could drift off to sleep with the comforting thought that he was going to at least try.


End file.
